


The Inconsistency Of All Human Characters

by WinterRose527



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Family Dynamics, Or Is It?, Stark vs Lannister, high society - Freeform, kind of, north vs south
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-09
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-10-25 05:23:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 18
Words: 63,353
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17718881
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WinterRose527/pseuds/WinterRose527
Summary: I know I know I know, I'm starting another one... I promise I'm updating my others though work has just been INSANE***Robb heads South to negotiate a business deal with the Lannisters. Enter Myrcella. Enter plans gone awry.The title is part of a quote from Pride and Prejudice, so make of that what you will.





	1. Chapter 1

The lobby of her grandfather’s building was warmed from the sun as she came in from the brisk fall air. It was set to be the coldest winter on record, which here in King’s Landing meant that the citizens might need to don a light jacket once or twice.

 

Myrcella’s heels click-clacked on the marble floor as the security guard waved her through. The familiar scent of apricots in the air greeted her as she stood in the elevator banks, using the code for the executive elevator that would take her straight to the penthouse offices held by the most senior members of Lannister Corp.

 

She checked her phone on the way up and answered a client’s email with promises of sending through images of a painting in the morning. When the doors of the elevator opened she walked through the set of glass doors.

 

“Hello Shae,” she smiled at the receptionist and her Uncle Tyrion’s current lover.

 

“Hello Miss Baratheon, Mr. Lannister is just in a meeting, he said that you could wait in his office if you’d like. Can I get you something to drink?,” the girl asked standing up.

 

Myrcella’s eyes appraised her. She was a beauty from across the narrow sea, barely a year older than Myrcella herself. She was good for Uncle Tyrion though, who had been sure to drink himself into an early grave before he’d met her.

 

“No, thank you, Shae,” she demurred, “If it’s alright with you, I’ll just wait here.”

 

Her Uncle’s office, in spite of being very large, was incredibly uncomfortable and reminded her too much of her mother’s house. Probably because her mother had hired the decorator and overseen the refurbishments herself for both Uncle Jaime’s and her Grandfather’s offices.

 

 

“Of course,” Shae nodded, though she glanced around nervously before sitting down.

 

Myrcella pulled out her cell phone again, leaning her hip against the reception desk and answered another email. A friend of her mother’s had requested a private tour for investors of her charity. Myrcella sent back an emphatic yes and forwarded the request to her office.

 

She looked up when she heard laughing, a mixture of authentic and forced.

 

“Ah Myrcella, sorry to keep you waiting,” her Uncle said, the mirth still clear in his tone.

 

“Not at all Uncle Jaime,” she deferred, knowing that he was clearly with a business associate, “Hello you.”

 

“Hello you,” he grinned as she crossed to him and kissed him warmly on the cheeks.

 

“Hello Grandfather,” she said and pressed a cool kiss to her grandfather’s cheek.

 

“Myrcella, you look well,” her grandfather said stiffly in spite of his attempt at warmth.

 

“As do you,” she allowed, “Will you be joining us for dinner?”

 

_Please say no, please say no._

 

“Regretfully no, unlike my son I will be putting in a full day of work,” her grandfather jibed.

 

It was already 6:30 pm, a full day of work had passed, but her grandfather never passed on an opportunity to attack her uncle’s work ethich. He took it in stride though and chuckled so she swallowed the bile and smiled politely.

 

“Well, won’t one of you introduce me?,” a deep, northern voice asked.

 

“Introduce the Young Wolf to my granddaughter? Not on your life, Stark,” her grandfather said and shook the man’s hand and walked away.

 

Without her grandfather blocking him she had a clear view. Her breath caught just a bit, as her eyes trailed up his body, impressive even in a suit, up to his face. He had that creamy northern complexion dotted in freckles, and clear blue eyes, and a thick mop of russet curls that seemed unkempt in spite of the neatness of his beard. He wore a bespoke suit, tailored to perfection, and no wedding band.

 

“Myrcella, this is Robb Stark, he’s come here on behalf of his father to discuss a new venture in Braavos,” her uncle told her.

 

Robb’s eyes flicked to her uncle, as though he couldn’t quite believe he’d just divulged that bit of information to her. But her uncle trusted her. He knew that she’d never betray the family, and he liked having her opinion. She knew it must seem odd to Robb though, considering that this deal was still nascent and any leaks would kill it in the cradle. 

 

His eyes swept back to her, both like he was trying to figure her out, and more simply, like he couldn’t quite bare to look away.

 

“Mr. Stark,” she smiled, offering her hand.

 

“Call me Robb,” he grinned, “ _Please_.”

 

“Very well, Robb,” she allowed as his hand encased hers.

 

It was large and warm and she could feel calluses on his palm that did not fit his formal appearance.

 

His eyes wandered down to where their hands were joined, and when she pulled hers away, his index finger trailed against her palm as though he was not eager to release her.

 

Her uncle cleared her throat and they both looked towards him.

 

“It’s good that you’re here, Myrcella,” he said, though his voice suggested he was regretting not meeting her at the restaurant, “Robb will be in town for the next few days. Any recommendations you can give him? I fear I’m a bit out of touch.”

 

“Oh,” she thought for a moment, “Well, when in doubt, the West Hamlet has the best restaurants and bars.” Robb had turned back to her and his eyes were lingering on her bare neck. His gaze may as well have been a caress so she stepped away and said, “Enjoy yourself, Mr. Stark. Uncle, are you ready?”

 

“Of course,” he nodded, “I’ll just grab my briefcase and we’ll be on our way. Robb I’ll see you tomorrow at 10.”

 

“See you then, Jaime,” Robb nodded.

 

She offered him one last smile and tucked the lock of golden hair that had escaped her ponytail behind her ear, glancing deep into his eyes before turning away. With that she started heading towards the glass doors.

 

“Wait!,” Robb called and she smiled to herself. North, South, it didn’t matter, boys were all the same. She steadied her heart before turning back around and quirking one of her eyebrows at him. He gave her a grin that found its way deep in her ribcage and he took a step towards her, “What’s your favorite restaurant in the West Hamlet? I’ll take you there on Saturday.”

 

He was good. Almost as good as she was.

 

She let out a light chuckle as Uncle Jaime came back to her side, “I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mr. Stark.”

 

“Robb,” he reminded her. “And why is that? Do you have a date?”

 

“And what if I do, Mr. Stark?”

 

“Cancel it,” he told her without a hint of mirth in his voice.

 

“Well you’re certainly bold enough to be a Stark,” she sighed. He gave her a grin as though he regretted nothing and she narrowed her eyes at him. “I’ll tell you what, do you have a card?”

 

He reached into his wallet and procured one. Her eyes caught the word _President_ before she slipped it into the pocket of her wool blazer.

 

“How do I know you’ll use it?,” he asked her.

 

“You don’t,” she shrugged, then offered him her most dazzling smile, “It’s more fun that way, I promise.”

 

His eyes trailed over her lips and he looked almost hungry, so she took her uncle by the arm and led him to the elevator without another word.

 

Once the doors closed behind them she let out a steading breath.

 

“When he emails you in three days and asks you for my number, give it to him,” she told her uncle.

 

She had absolutely no intention of using the card that her fingertips were currently tracing lazily.

 

He glanced down at her and sighed and then set his focus straight ahead.

 

“Well how do you know he’ll email me for it anyway?,” he asked almost petulantly.

 

She thought of the way Robb’s eyes had widened when she’d smiled at him, and the feel of his index finger on the heel of her palm.

 

“I just know,” she evaded.

 

“I hope you know what you’re doing,” he sighed, “This venture is important to us, Myrcella. I don’t want it ruined by your broken heart.”

 

She let out a harsh chuckle, “We both know Tywin Lannister would not be swayed by my heart. That would require him to have one of his own.”

 

“You know he cares for you,” her Uncle told her. He always wanted to shield her from the worst aspects of her family, but there was no hiding the moral corrosion of the Lannisters. “I think above anyone, he cares for you.”

 

“Except you,” she reminded him.

 

It was why he was so hard on him, her Uncle Tyrion was a disappointment to him, her mother a tool or impedance depending upon the hour, but her Uncle Jaime was a mirror.

 

“And above all, I care for _you_ ,” her Uncle said. “I mean it, Myrcella. I want this deal, but if that Stark boy hurts you I will bring down a rain of fire upon him, and his whole bloody family.”

 

She smiled as they exited the building.

 

“You know, Uncle Jaime, I’m not sure I deserve you,” she teased.

 

“You don’t,” he teased back, smiling down at her. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, “But you have me all the same.”

 

***

 

In spite of the pollution in the city air, Robb breathed deeply as soon as he got outside the Lannister’s building.

 

He’d been in negotiations all day with Jaime and Tywin, and he felt the odd need to stretch, or failing that, punch something.

 

He turned left to head towards his hotel, he wasn’t sure whether he’d got to the gym or the bar, but either way he was eager to get there.

 

His phone rang and he saw _Jon_ on the caller ID so he answered, “Snow.”

 

“Stark,” Jon returned, “How’s it going?”

 

Robb sighed, “You were right, this city smells like shit.”

 

Jon chuckled, “Aye well, you’re not there to smell the roses or you’d be in Highgarden. Really, how’s it going?”

 

“Who’s asking?,” Robb wondered, “You, or my father?”

 

“Does it matter?,” Jon returned.

 

Robb glanced this way and that, half expecting to find one of the Lannister’s security detail trailing him, and quickened his pace.

 

“They’re lying,” Robb told him when he was sure that he wasn’t being followed.

 

“They’re Lannisters,” Jon noted, and Robb could practically see him shrugging. “But how do you know?”

 

“A factory they mentioned as being one of the highest producers has been closed for over a year,” he told him.

 

“Isn’t it possible they just had bad information?,” Jon offered.

 

“They’re Lannisters,” Robb echoed. He shook his head, and sighed, “I know my father is intent that we take this deal, but I want to know what else they’re hiding.”

 

“Getting information out of Tywin Lannister that he doesn’t want to reveal?,” Jon scoffed, “You’ll die in that shit city before you learn anything worthwhile.”

 

“Who said anything about getting it out of Tywin?,” Robb challenged.

 

“Jaime?,” Jon wondered.

 

“No, he’s nowhere near as smart as his father but he’s loyal to them and weary of me. There’s a girl though, a granddaughter.”

 

“Myranda? Mya? No it’s prissier than that,” Jon sighed in frustration.

 

“Myrcella,” Robb answered, ignoring the pit in his stomach. “I just met her.”

 

“What’s she like?,” Jon asked.

 

Robb thought of a pair of jadeite eyes and a warm, twinkling laugh, the scent of jasmine wafting subtly from golden hair.

 

“She’s a Lannister,” he shrugged.

 

“So she’s beautiful,” Jon said knowingly.

 

Robb thought of that smile she’d given him before turning away, as though she already knew everything. As though it was all going according to plan.

 

And it was, it just wasn’t her plan.

 

“She’s proud,” Robb amended, then allowed, “And yes, beautiful, and wealthy. She’s probably had guys falling at her feet since the moment she was born. She won’t suspect a thing.”

 

Jon was silent on the other end and Robb wondered if this city had already sank its teeth into him.

 

“Just be careful,” Jon warned, “You know what they say. The Lannisters always pay their debts.”


	2. Chapter 2

“And what’s the estimate on this one?,” Mrs. Tyrell asked her.

 

Myrcella didn’t need to look in the catalogue to answer her, “This is 5-7 million.”

 

“Marvellous,” the woman sighed, “Just marvellous. I’d like to set up a phone line for this one, is that possible?”

 

Myrcella smiled at her warmly, “Of course, I’d be happy to set that up for you. Shall I register you for lots 2 and 10 as well, just in case your husband comes around?”

 

“Very good!,” the older woman, Olenna, congratulated her as though she was a prized pupil. She leaned forward, leaning heavily on her cane. Myrcella braced herself, in case she might need to catch her, but the woman’s eyes were shrewd and mischievous when she said, “The truth is, my son is an oaf and doesn’t know the difference between a Tonet and a Tanet, but he holds the purse strings so here we are! He’ll be joining us and if you could _steer him away_ from that gods awful Braavosi piece.”

 

Myrcella fought the urge to laugh. In truth, that gods awful Braavosi piece was one of the stars of the season, but she had always found the artist shallow and provocative for the mere sake of it. His market was incredibly strong but she didn’t advise any of her clients to buy his work, knowing the bubble would burst soon.

 

“It has it’s own room,” Myrcella confided and winked at her conspiratorially, “Out of sight, out of mind?”

 

The old woman grinned at her, revealing one or two teeth missing, but she patted her hand warmly and asked to see a 17th century still-life that was on tour from the office in Volantis.

 

An hour later, after having met the _oaf_ , she was helping them into their car, settling the tote bag filled with this season’s catalogues on the floor at their feet. She promised to register them for the now six paintings they were interested in, and told them she’d try to be the one on the phone with them during the sale and said her goodbyes.

 

She walked back into her building and went to the front desk and asked them to set aside a few catalogues for another client who was sending his secretary to pick them up.

 

“Myrcella?,” a smug, Northern voice asked her.

 

“You’re early,” she told him as she turned around, forcing herself not to smile.

 

It was challenging though, because there was Robb Stark, in a perfectly tailored navy blue suit, a pair of sunglasses perched on his head as though he’d just been taking a leisurely stroll despite it being a Thursday afternoon.

 

“Early?,” he questioned, his dimples winking at her, “Were you expecting me?”

 

She’d hardly stopped thinking about him all through dinner with her uncle. He hadn’t helped the situation by complaining about Robb nearly the entire time. It appeared the Young Wolf was _not his father_ and was giving him and her grandfather a true run for their money.

 

Though they’d been locked in negotiations all week Robb had conceded almost nothing.

 

“You don’t seem the sort to give up easily,” she shrugged. “I expected you’d track me down sooner or later, but the very next day? You’re something else entirely, aren’t you, Mr. Stark?”

 

“On the contrary,” he argued, “My seeing you is just a happy accident. I’m here on business for my mother, she asked me to look into a painting she might be interested in.”

 

Myrcella blushed, “Oh.”

 

He stepped closer to her and she fought the urge to take a step backwards. He had such a strong presence that she felt unusually daunted by him, even as he drew her in.

 

“Is that disappointment I detect?,” he teased her.

 

Now she fought the urge to step on his foot. Instead she raised her chin haughtily and all but shook her hair.

 

“Of course not,” she lied, “If you’ll tell my colleague at the desk the painting your looking for, I’m sure she’ll be able to direct you. Have a nice day, Mr. Stark.”

 

With that she offered him the smile she offered to all clients and moved towards the elevators. She was stopped by his large hand wrapping around her wrist and pulling her back gently.

 

She looked down at where their skin met, half-expecting her wrist to be seared by the heat she felt, and then slowly dragged her eyes up to his. She felt triumphant when she saw his pupils dilate and she pressed her advantage and raised an eyebrow at him.

 

“I’d prefer if you showed me,” he told her, “And isn’t that what you lot are known for here? Exceptional client service and all that?”

 

Her stomach knotted because she knew that if it got back to her boss that she turned down the opportunity to speak with not only a prospective buyer, but no less than the heir to the largest fortune in the North she’d be in deep trouble. And while her family didn’t understand why she worked for the auction house rather than managing the family collection, or working for Lannister Corp., she loved her job. She’d gotten it through connections of course, but she made sure to perform strongly enough that people might forget that fact.

 

She plastered a smile on her face and said, “Of course, Mr. Stark, which painting are you most interested in seeing, or would you prefer a general tour?”

 

“Let’s start with the Tonet, and then a general tour if your schedule allows, and please, call me Robb.”

 

“Oh, no, that wouldn’t be appropriate with a client, Mr. Stark. If you’ll follow me? Your mother has excellent taste, this work is from the artist’s final series and really exemplifies the culmination…”

 

***

 

She was a worthier adversary than either of her uncles.

 

Every attempt he made at flirting she diverted deftly. His heart sank a bit when he realised she must be very practiced in it. The blue blooded clients must hit on her all the time, regardless of their age, and with her face and breeding she’d be the type they’d push in front of the celebrities too, like a prized show pony.

 

So she was schooled in evasive tactics far more than Jaime Lannister.

 

“This is _how_ much?,” he asked her, switching up his game.

 

“The current estimate is 60-80 million but we anticipate bidding in the region of 100 million,” she told him.

 

Being a Lannister must come in handy to her here. She probably had 100 million in her personal checking account, and the ability to throw out such large numbers so effortlessly was a skill that those who had not grown up with money could never quite master. She didn’t even blink.

 

“100 million,” he shook his head, looking at the painting in front of him.

 

He wouldn’t pay 100 dollars for it. It was clearly one of the darlings of the sale, appearing on the front cover of the catalogue Myrcella was touting and being held in its own room _to enhance the experience_.

 

He must not have been very good at hiding his thoughts because she allowed, “It’s not to everyone’s tastes.”

 

“Is it to yours?,” he asked her without much thought.

 

He couldn’t help himself, he was curious about her.

 

He’d spent the evening researching her, in this situation knowledge was key. In spite of her being one of the wealthiest heiresses in the country (second only to her mother, in fact), there was surprisingly little about her on the internet. He imagined that her grandfather was to thank for that, his master of spies was well known, but Robb knew he was just as good at suppressing information as he was at finding it.

 

He had learned that she’d been to the best schools in the country, an elite pre-school and grade school, the most prestigious boarding school - the one Sansa had gotten into but their parents had kept her from attending because of the distance - her undergraduate degree from Vale and her graduate degree earned at the Citadel.

 

She was an internationally ranked equestrian, a goodwill ambassador, and was considered one of the Top 100 Most Influential People Under 30. As was he, but that was neither here nor there.

 

Even still, there was nothing about her dating history, only society pictures of her attending one event or another, usually on the arm of her younger brother or her uncle.

 

He found it hard to believe that she hadn’t dated anyone, a girl like her would have no shortage of men vying for her attention. And he knew from the way she’d looked at him last night that a lack of interest towards his gender was not a factor.

 

So he found himself unwillingly yet undeniably curious.

 

She glanced at him and then at the other clients milling about the small chamber and cocked her head towards the door. He nodded and gestured for her to lead the way, which she did. He was proud of himself for only glancing at her ass for a brief moment as he followed her out.

 

“Alright, Baratheon, what sort of State secrets are you about to disclose?,” he asked her conspiratorially.

 

She giggled and shook her head like he was a fool, but finally answered, “No, it’s not to my taste. Though of course, I’ll deny ever saying so…”

 

He raised his hands and said, “Your secret is safe with me,” she glanced over at him so he said, lowering his voice slightly, “All of them.”

 

_Easy Stark, don’t give away the game._

 

“Who says I have secrets?,” she asked him gamely.

 

“You’re a _Lannister_ ,” he teased her.

 

The mirth was gone from her eyes when she turned towards him.

 

“I’m more than that, you know,” she said softly, “Don’t get me wrong, Mr. Stark, I am proud to be a Lannister but…”

 

He cut her off by taking her hand. Her green eyes flashed up to his and her breath caught. He could think of a 100 million different ways to cause that little hitch in her breath. He would explore them too, every single one of them if this was a different world, if he wasn’t a Stark or she wasn’t a Lannister, if they were just two young people who happened upon one another.

 

But they weren’t, and there wasn’t a pair of green eyes lovely enough that could make him forget his duty to his family.

 

“I know you’re more than that,” he said softly, letting the gravel of his tone convince her of the truth of his words. Her hand was still in his so he rubbed the sole of it with his thumb. “So let’s agree that to you I will not be a Stark, and to me you will not be a Lannister. Let’s save all that to our families and we can just be Robb and Myrcella.”

 

“You make it sound so simple,” she half-smiled.

 

He knew he wouldn’t get anywhere with her until that smile was full.

 

“Ah well, the perks of being a Northern fool,” he shrugged, “So what do you say, Myrcella, have dinner with me, won’t you?” She still seemed hesitant so he took a chance and narrowed his eyes at her, “I dare you.”

 

He was grateful in that moment that he was a Stark, that he wasn’t merely Robb. Because if he was just a simple Northern boy, he never would have stood a chance against the other side of that smile.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to hear what you all think so far! xx


	3. Chapter 3

 

“You know, Myrcella,” Robb said, “When I asked you to have dinner with me, this isn’t _exactly_ what I meant.”

 

She couldn’t really blame him for his surprise. The Forge was not exactly the kind of place written up in The Times, it wasn’t the kind of place her girlfriends went when they got dressed up and pretended like they weren’t at all interested in speaking to the paparazzi waiting outside. It didn’t attract tourists and it didn’t have more than five items on the menu, and that was exactly why she loved it.

 

She grinned ruefully at him and shrugged, “Look if you have something against burgers then there really isn’t any point in us continuing this.”

 

He gave her a grin of his own and pointed his finger at her, “I _love_ burgers…,” and with that he swiped his thumb across her lip, ridding it of ketchup, and raised it to his own. It was a cliche, but it made her heart flutter all the same. He looked at her a moment longer and shrugged, “I just… I don’t know, was picturing something with candlelight, an insufferable plating technique and a wine list that would allow me to impress you with my extensive knowledge…”

 

She set down her burger and looked at him, “Look Robb, we have to get one thing straight.”

 

He all but gulped and narrowed his gaze at her warily, “And what’s that then?”

 

“You will never,” she told him solemnly, “And I mean _never…_ impress me with your knowledge of wine.”

 

His eyes widened and then he let out a guffaw. She bit innocently into a french fry as he took a sip of his beer.

 

“You really had me going there for a minute,” he told her, pretending to fan himself. “And why’s that by the way? You don’t strike me as a beer girl.”

 

“Nope,” she shook her head, “Not a beer girl. But my mother has the best stocked wine cellar in the country and you may not know this, but my Uncle Tyrion actually has a vineyard in Dorne…” Robb raised his eyebrows at her and she nodded, “I worked on it the summer I turned sixteen,” then put her hand to the side of her mouth and leaned in conspiratorially, “My _rebellious_ year.”

 

“Let me get this straight,” Robb backed up, “Your form of rebellion was _working_ at your family’s vineyard,” he shook his head, “You need me even more than I thought you did.”

 

She waved her hand with a flourish, all but flicking her hair, and took a sip of her gin and tonic.

 

“But really,” he went on, nudging his foot gently against hers until she turned on her bar stool to look at him. His blue eyes wandered over her face as though she was a puzzle he’d like to solve, if only he could find the missing piece. “How was that a rebellion?”

 

She opened her mouth to tell him everything. All about the spring that her father died and she’d found the will. About how she hadn’t told anyone where she was going, not even Uncle Jaime, and how her grandfather had sent his hounds after her. She could have told him about the local boy she’d fallen for, the Martell only a few years older than her who was shirking familial responsibilities of his own all those nights he took her to the water gardens. She could have told him how her Uncle Tyrion was nearly disinherited for his part in it all.

 

But in spite of what he’d requested, she could not forget who she was. A Lannister in spite of her name.

 

So instead, she placed her elbow on the bar and rested her chin in her palm, “Because I made truly _terrible_ wine. A grave sin amongst my family.”

 

He looked at her like he didn’t quite believe her, then quirked a half smile and shook his head, “Surprised you escaped the wrath of the gods after a sin such as that.”

 

“Between you and me, I’m not so sure that I have,” she said with a half smile of her own, “I think they’re just vying their time.”

 

Now it was his turn to set his elbow down on the bar and lean closer to her. His blue eyes wandered over her again, as though that piece was very _very_ close.

 

“Why would they hesitate? They’re gods.”

 

She looked over his face, he had a smattering of freckles on his nose that made him seem far more innocent than that grin would ever allow him to be.

 

“Well, one of two reasons really,” she said, loosening his tie because he looked terribly out of place, and she liked the way his Adam’s Apple bobbed when she did. “Either, their true punishment is in the waiting, the _fear_ of what’s to come.”

 

“Or?,” he asked, his gaze on her lips.

 

She gave him the same smile that had caused him to stop her in her family’s office, the one that made him not want to let her walk away.

 

“Or they’ve been waiting for the perfect messenger to deliver my destruction.”

 

***

 

“Alright, alright, I heard there was a blonde in here causing trouble,” a deep voice said behind him, snapping him out of whatever trance he’d been in, “Shoulda known it’d be you.”

 

Myrcella let out a grin he hadn’t seen on her yet, and he imagined her instantly, six years old with golden pig tails, one of her front teeth missing and scrawny legs.

 

“Gendry!,” she exclaimed and hopped off her bar stool and hurled herself at the man.

 

Gendry was a strapping, broad-shouldered guy, who had to be 6’4’’ at least. He held Myrcella like she was weightless, and though the two couldn’t look more dissimilar there was something to them that he couldn’t quite place.

 

“Lommy being good to you?,” Gendry asked her.

 

“Very,” she nodded, “Though not _quite_ as good as Hotpie, I’ve been dreaming about one of his burgers for a week now.”

 

“Auction season,” Gendry shrugged, setting her down and looking at her and probably noting the way her trousers hung on her slim hips, “And I’d say you’re _due_. You know you’ve got to be caref-“

 

“Gendry!,” Myrcella interrupted, the pair of them scowling at one another.

 

It reminded him of Arya and B- _he’s Robert’s_. He had seen the picture on his father’s desk, the pair of them in uniform from their time together during the war. Gendry was a dead ringer for him.

 

Robb felt his stomach churn at the reminder that their families had bound together long before this, and that though in appearance she favoured the Lannisters, her blood was half Baratheon.

 

Robert was dead though, and any allegiance his father had felt towards hers had died long before he did.

 

So he stood up and held out his hand, “I’m Robb Stark.”

 

Gendry tore his eyes away from his sister and looked down at the offered hand and then to his eyes. He was only an inch taller than him, but even still he was imposing.

 

“Gendry Waters,” he said though, shaking his hand. “How do you know the Little Doe?”

 

“Robb’s in the capital on business,” Myrcella said smoothly, deftly allowing him not to have to figure out what to say. “He came into Shipley’s today looking after a painting.”

 

He had to give it to her, she hadn’t lied once.

 

Gendry grimaced, “Not that Braavosi hack, I hope?”

 

Robb chuckled and shook his head, “Abso _lutely_ not, that’s the biggest farce I’ve ever seen.”

 

“Now boys…,” Myrcella started.

 

“Did she give you all that diplomatic _It’s not to everyone’s taste_ bullshit?,” Gendry asked him, “You’d never know she wrote a paper in Uni outlining all the artist’s he’s stolen from…Ow!”

 

Robb looked between them and realised that Myrcella had stomped on Gendry’s foot. In stilettos no less.

 

“ _That_ was for talking about me like I’m not standing right here,” she said haughtily, “And you’re not supposed to tell just anybody that.”

 

Her cheeks were flushed in annoyance and her eyes were glimmering and it was the prettiest she’d ever been.

 

Gendry grinned down at her though it was entirely possible that his shoe was filling with blood and wrapped an arm around her.

 

“You brought him here, little one. That means he’s not just anybody.”

 

***

 

“Noooo, don’t! It’s so cheesy!,” she argued.

 

“Myrcella,” he sighed in annoyance, “Are you seriously stubborn enough to stay _cold_ just to avoid a hint of cheesiness?”

 

In truth, she was that stubborn. But she also was that cold so she sighed in defeat.

 

He grinned as he draped his suit jacket over her shoulders, picking up her hair to pull it out from the collar. His finger traced the back of her neck when he did and she shivered.

 

“You’ll warm up in a minute,” he told her, his breath warm on her ear.

 

He rubbed his hands up and down her arms and she really did feel warmer already.

 

He grinned down at her, “So should I hail you a cab?”

 

The Forge was in an area just outside the posh neighborhood where she lived. It was only a ten minute walk, but she usually did take a taxi because it wasn’t safe to walk alone at night.

 

She glanced up at Robb. In spite of his polished look, she knew that a strong body was underneath that dress shirt, and she knew that everyone else would know it too. And she really wasn’t ready to say goodnight just yet.

 

“Actually…,” she said, “I’m only about ten minutes from here. Walk me home?”

 

 

He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and then offered her his arm. She took it and gestured that they head towards the right so they did.

 

They walked in silence for a few minutes, and she was surprised to find it comfortable. She spent all day speaking to people, either clients and colleagues, especially during this busy season, and it was nice to just be for a moment.

 

They were walking by the canal, and the street lamps cast everything in a hazy glow.

 

“The city is so much lovelier at night,” she said, “You know, when you can’t see the garbage. Though it smells the same.”

 

He chuckled, “The sad thing is I hardly smell it anymore. I’ve only been here a week. But you say that like you aren’t used to walking at night…”

 

She sighed, “Well it isn’t really safe… for a girl on her own. My family would like me to have a security detail but…,” she wanted to say that she didn’t want anyone reporting on her comings and goings to her grandfather. Instead she said, “I don’t like being followed.”

 

“It’s that unsafe?,” he asked her. She nodded and he shook his head, “In Wintertown a girl as pretty as you could walk around in her underwear and no one would touch her.”

 

“Must be nice,” she smiled at the thought. “I can’t even imagine it here. So with you here I figured I’d take advantage of the opportunity.”

 

“So you’re using me?,” he teased.

 

She glanced up at him and shrugged, “Fair’s fair. You used me first.”

 

He stopped walking and turned her towards him. His eyes were alarmed, though he was doing a very good job of pretending that he wasn’t, “What do you mean?”

 

“Last night? In the office?,” she prompted him. She understood her Uncle’s frustration with him, because he gave away nothing. He’d make her say it. She rolled her eyes, “Come on… at least some of that was to get a rise out of my uncle and grandfather…”

 

His jaw quirked and he started walking again, pulling her gently with him.

 

After a moment he said, “Fine. My _way_ of doing it was absolutely a little bit about getting a rise out of them. Can you really blame me though? I’ve been locked in negotiations with them for _days_ and they are not exactly known for the humour.”

 

She chuckled and nodded, “Yeah they are really only funny when they aren’t trying to be. My father was the funny one.”

 

“But even if that wasn’t the case, I still would have pursued you,” he said, “I still would have come to the auction house today to find you -“

 

“ _I_ thought you were just there to look at a painting for your mother?,” she argued.

 

He looked down at her, his ocean eyes drinking her in, and though they glittered with amusement his tone was serious when he said, “No… you didn’t.”

 

She felt that gravel in his voice in her whole body and she shook her head, “No,” she all but whispered, “I didn’t.”

 

They kept walking and he asked her all about the auction coming up and about her siblings. He asked her about her mother and her uncles and her grandfather.

 

“Aren’t you sick of the Lannisters?,” she wondered. “As you say, you’ve been holed up with my family for a week. I’d prefer to hear about yours…”

 

He shrugged, “There’s not much to tell really. Mom and Dad love each other and us, I’ve got four younger siblings, two little brothers and sisters each.”

 

“That’s a lot of responsibility,” she assumed. “They must all depend on you quite a bit. And being the heir to your father on top of that… no wonder you seem older than twenty-seven.”

 

He shrugged, “That’s who I’ve always been. I don’t really know anything different. Family above all else.”

 

“I thought you Starks believed in honour above all else?,” she asked.

 

He paused at that and she wondered if he was debating, like she had been all evening, how much to reveal. She wondered if he was torn like she was, between feeling as though she could trust him with everything, and knowing that she could divulge almost nothing.

 

“Well you forget,” he said lightly though, and it was clear which part of himself had won. “I’m half Tully.”

 

She smiled and nodded. She knew his Great-Uncle, the Blackfish, a fierce business adversary of her grandfather’s but a good man. He’d do anything for his family.

 

“Well, this is me,” she told him, as she stopped walking in front of her apartment building.

 

“Really? This _whole_ building?,” he teased her.

 

She smiled, so that she didn’t have to tell him that in fact she did own the whole building. That it had been gifted to her upon her eighteenth birthday along with a number of other real estate holdings. There was no reason he had to know that.

 

“Well I’d _hardly_ let a man I just met walk me all the way to my door,” she reasoned.

 

He looked at her like he was about to say something cheeky, but then he crinkled his eyes at her and nodded, “Smart.”

 

There was something in his tone, something she hadn’t quite heard before. Something that he had tried at earlier in the day but hadn’t achieved. It was weighted and earnest and it made her more curious about him than even his most roguish grin could.

 

She didn’t want to break the spell, whatever it was, so she stepped forward and kissed his cheek goodbye.

 

Up close he smelled like spearmint and something else clean and manly and amazingly even a little bit like freshly fallen snow. She went to move away from him but he held her there, his hand on the small of her back. He was quick, so quick.

 

“ _Myrcella_ ,” he sighed in her ear, covering her body in goosebumps.

 

She held herself there for a moment longer, letting her temple rest against his chin before stepping back.

 

He was a gracious loser, he gave her a lopsided smile and nodded, “I know, I know, I was trying to break the rules.” She cocked one of her eyebrows at him and he went on, “No kissing on the first date?”

 

She wanted to tell him that this wasn’t a date. Something, anything to keep the game going.

 

Instead she pulled off his suit jacket, feeling the chill in the air as soon as she did and handing it back to him.

 

“Goodnight, Robb,” she said.

 

He took it from her, “Goodnight Myrcella.”

 

She looked at him once more and she could see the street lamps reflected in his eyes. She turned away and headed towards the revolving door. She couldn’t help it though, she wanted to see him one last time, the strength of his back and the purpose in his stride as he walked away.

 

The funny thing was though, when she turned back she found him in the exact same place, just watching her, as though he wouldn’t leave until she was safely inside and perhaps even a few moments longer.

 

“You know the thing is, Robb,” she said, “I never really was one much for rules anyway…”

 

“Thank the gods,” he breathed out.

 

It took him only two strides to get to her and then his hand was on her chin, tilting her face up to his. She thought she caught a glimpse of something in his eyes, but then his lips were on hers, and she couldn’t really think at all.


	4. Chapter 4

“Well I think we’ve gotten as far as we’re going to today,” Baelish, Robb’s least favourite of the Lannisters’ associates said. “Shall we call it a day, gentlemen?”

 

Jaime nodded at him and so Robb sighed and nodded as well. He had wanted to push further on the expansion language but he knew that would open up a whole new discussion about capital and he didn’t have the numbers he needed to do so today.

 

He stood up, wordlessly signalling to everyone that they were in fact done for the day and they all followed suit.

 

The men started filing out, discussions of dinner plans and happy hours that might still be on. He went to leave with everyone else, but Jaime stopped him with a hand to his chest.

 

Robb glanced at him, wondering if they were finally going to come to blows the way he had been dying to since he’d arrived in the south. Nothing this evening had been particularly heated but he didn’t need much to goad him when it came to the Lannisters, and he knew that Jaime felt the same about his family.

 

The joint venture had been their fathers’ idea. Both companies were venturing into Braavos and there was a large threat that the two would cannibalise one another. Also, with the corruption in the government, and the amount of people that had to be paid off, they would glean more by combining their efforts and only going through the process once. Apart, it was mutually assured destruction, together, they’d have a monopoly within half a year.

 

He knew it was right thing, he knew it was, but even still he hated it. He hated the way the Lannisters did business, and Tywin was one of the most calculated and dangerous people he had ever met.

 

He had been against it from the start, which was why his father had sent him to oversee these negotiations. Allegedly.

 

_I don’t want some fool down there looking to grease his own pockets by giving away the farm._

 

As though he was in his thoughts, Jaime said, “You know I’ll admit, I didn’t understand it at first. Why your father sent you to handle this deal. He’s young, it’s not like he’s handing the reins over anytime soon… but I see it now.”

 

_You hate the Lannisters? Use that to our advantage and get us the best deal you can, son._

 

“He just hates this city,” Robb shrugged.

 

Jaime chuckled and shook his head, “Perhaps. But even still… it’s quite a task to leave to someone so young.”

 

“You handled your first merger when you were twenty, still in business school,” Robb pointed out.

 

“I did,” he nodded, and then held out his arms wide and gave that simpering grin, “But I am me. And you are many things, Robb Stark, but you are not me.”

 

“You’re right,” Robb nodded, then gave a simpering grin of his own, “After all, I handled my first when I was nineteen.”

 

Jaime’s jaw clenched but he feigned nonchalance when he said, “Really, I didn’t know that.”

 

He said it casually, as though a thorough background investigation had not been done on him the moment this venture became a possibility. His role in that merger hadn’t been public though. At the time, young and bullish, he hadn’t understood why, but now he did.

 

He nodded, “Something my father taught me,” he said and Jaime raised an eyebrow at him. Myrcella must have learned the habit from her uncle. He went on, “Don’t make a spectacle of your achievements. That way when you go head to head with someone, they won’t know what you’re capable of.”

 

Jaime grinned, “Well said. Of course, my father has also taught me many things. Let’s have a drink to their lessons. I’m going to a cocktail party at Walder Frey’s, it’s going to be ghastly. Come along.”

 

Robb chuckled, “Well with an invitation like that, it’s hard to turn down…but I actually have plans.”

 

“What was that line you said to my niece?,” Jaime questioned and then nodded, “Ah yes, cancel them?”

 

Robb tried to hold back the smugness in his tone, but he couldn’t quite do it, “I would, but that’s just it… _she’s_ the plan.”

 

If Jaime had been surprised a moment ago, now he was well and truly caught off guard. He kept his face impassive, but inside he was celebrating.

 

_This is going to work. She’s the key, I knew it._

 

“She called you?,” Jaime asked, “She was so adamant that she wouldn’t.”

 

That was curious, but it didn’t give him pause.

 

“I tracked her down,” Robb confessed with a grin, as though he were nothing more than a boy besotted with a beautiful girl, “A girl like her could never respect a boy that waited for her to make the first move.”

 

“And you’re so certain you know what kind of girl she is? You met her for all of five minutes,” Jaime noted.

 

“Here, yes,” Robb nodded, “But we spent some time together at the auction house and had dinner that night, and she accompanied me to a charity event on Sunday evening. So of course I don’t know her as well as _you_ but I would say I know her well enough to know that.”

 

Jaime clenched his jaw and Robb wondered vaguely if he was about to get sucker-punched. It would be worth it to know that he had truly gotten under his skin.

 

His stomach clenched at the idea of someone using Arya or Sansa against him like this. His sisters were the most important people in his life, the way Myrcella was to Jaime, and they were all that was needed for someone to bring him to his knees.

 

If Jaime were any other man, he’d be too consumed with guilt to press on.

 

“You know, if it were any other girl, I would tell you well done,” Jaime told him.

 

But Jaime wasn’t any other man.

 

“But she isn’t any other girl,” Robb pointed out.

 

“That’s right,” Jaime nodded, fixing his cuff links, and then he stepped forward. They were almost identical in height and so it was perfectly easy to see the fervour in his eyes when he said, “So let me tell you now that one of the many lessons my father taught me was how to deal with those that harm our family.”

 

“The Lannisters always pay their debts, I know,” Robb nodded as though bored of it, “After all, the North remembers.”

 

***

 

Myrcella scurried into Supper, one of her favourite restaurants in the West Hamlet on Wednesday evening, a little out of breath and absolutely starving.

 

She waved at the gorgeous hostess, who was Harry Hardyng’s most recent conquest, and pointed to Robb who was standing at the bar. The hostess, Sylvie pretended to fan herself so by the time Myrcella got to Robb she was giggling.

 

“Hi, hi, hi,” she said, “I’m so sorry I’m late.”

 

Robb teased, “You look sorry.”

 

She smiled, her heart rate returning to normal after her mad dash to get here, and tweaked his nose, “Well you look handsome.”

 

It was true. He had on a stunning charcoal suit and a gorgeous tie and his beard had grown in just a little bit more since the weekend. He was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.

 

“Then you’re forgiven,” he told her. She raised an eyebrow at him and he shrugged, “What can I say? I’m susceptible to flattery, and besides it’s very hard to be angry at a girl for showing up late when she shows up looking like you.”

 

She grinned and he pressed a kiss to her dimple.

 

“Do you want a drink before we sit down or?,” he asked her. As though it had a mind of its own, her stomach growled. He chuckled at her, “Alright let’s get some food in you quick.”

 

With that he signalled to Sylvie who gestured for them to follow her to a table. Sylvie winked at her as they sat down, she was good at her job, as she had placed them at the plum spot. It was a corner booth that all the other tables in the room seemed to gravitate towards.

 

Especially now, with her and Robb seated there together, most of the tables seemed in some way to be glancing curiously at them.

 

“So what’s good here?,” Robb asked her, oblivious to it.

 

“ _Everything_ ,” she promised, focusing all her attention on him, “But if you like it, their rack of lamb is the best in the city.”

 

“Is that so?,” he asked her, closing his menu as though it was a done deal.

 

“I’d stake my reputation on it,” she teased.

 

He grinned and leaned closer to her, tucking a lock of hair behind her ear, “A precious thing, that.”

 

“Too precious,” she agreed, with a hand on his cheek, her thumb stroking it lightly to soften the rejection, “To risk it by making a spectacle of myself in front of so many curious eyes.”

 

His eyes crinkled, and he rubbed the shell of her ear as though he very much understood. He picked up the wine list and handed it to her.

 

“I thought you were going to impress me with your _extensive knowledge_ ,” she teased him.

 

“And I thought that was impossible?,” he challenged.

 

She turned straight ahead and raised her chin imperiously, “Surprise me,” and then glanced at him and crossed her eyes, much less imperiously.

 

“F _uck_ you’re cute,” he breathed out.

 

She turned towards him, and he looked so surprised that he had said that to her that she couldn’t help but laugh. He recovered quickly and joined in, but turned back towards the wine list and began perusing it.

 

Her phone buzzed in her bag and she ignored it. But then it buzzed again.

 

“Sorry, do you mind? I’ll turn it on silent,” she said.

 

He waved her off as he continued looking at the wine so she went her bag and pulled out her personal cell phone, resisting the urge to check her work phone as well. She went to go turn it on silent when she saw that she had three texts, all from Uncle Jaime.

 

_Myrcella, Are you free for dinner tomorrow?_

 

_I’ve made a reservation at 8 o’clock. Supper. I’ve asked for that table you like._

 

_Robb told me he was seeing you tonight. Look after yourself. I’ll be up if you need anything._

 

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She turned her phone on silent and put it back into her bag.

 

She turned to him and found him looking at her already, “How do you feel about a cab?”

 

“As a matter of fact I was just thinking about getting one,” she told him.

 

His brow furrowed, “Oh, I thought we’d split a bottle?”

 

“What did you say to my Uncle?,” she demanded.

 

Robb looked at her and then back at the wine list as though it might hold some answers. He placed the menu down and rubbed his eyes.

 

“I said that we were having dinner, and that we had been out a couple of times,” he shrugged. “It’s not like I told him we made out in the coat closet at the charity event on Sunday.”

 

Her brows knit, “But we didn’t make out in the coat closet at the charity event on Sunday.”

 

“Well _I_ know that, but there’s no possible way that he could…,” he reasoned.

 

She looked at him in horror and the bastard had the audacity to wink at her. He really was sure of himself. Unfortunately, that was exactly her type.

 

She tried, but she couldn’t hold in the laughter that bubbled up inside of her.

 

“So,” Robb said, “Let me be clear. How about a bottle of cabernet sauvignon, and no mention of taxis until the end of the evening?”

 

She narrowed her eyes at him and said, “Tread wisely, Robb Stark, or the _end of the evening_ might just come sooner than you’d like.”

 

***

 

The server came with their wine and after opening it, poured a bit of it in his glass. He tasted it and nodded, it was Sansa’s favourite and he’d grown a liking for it out of necessity. Whiskey was not considered a suitable dinner beverage in the company that he was forced to keep.

 

The server filled Myrcella’s glass with a slight flourish and then filled the rest of his own.

 

“I’ll give you a moment,” he said and left them to their wine and themselves.

 

Robb raised his glass, “Cheers.”

 

Myrcella gave him a small smile and clinked hers against his. She turned away from him and looked at the menu and took a sip from her glass.

 

Her eyes closed suddenly as she let the wine wash over her tongue and she didn’t open them until after she had swallowed. When she opened them, she returned to looking at the menu as though nothing had happened.

 

“Where did you go just then?,” he asked her.

 

It was one of the first unguarded moments he had seen from her. She was gifted at the deception. She presented herself as the world would wish to see her. A beautiful young heiress with a bright mind and laughter in her very bones.

 

There was more to her though, something of her grandfather in her of course, but something else too. Something he couldn’t quite place, but he was sure that was the key. To get anything out of her, he had to get to that place.

 

“Dorne,” she smiled dreamily. He almost called her on it. Anyone who knew a whit about wine would know this was from Dorne. “This vintage is a 2008, I think? A little vineyard called Sunspear.”

 

“Very good,” he congratulated her, though he had never cared for showoffs.

 

She nodded and bit her lip and then took another sip.

 

“It’s the vineyard next to my Uncle’s,” she explained though as she set her glass down, making him feel guilty for suspecting her of peacocking.

 

“Oh,” he said, taking a casual sip, stalling. He set his wine glass down as well and feigned nonchalance, “The one you worked at?”

 

She nodded, “That summer Dorne had the best crop in a decade. Apart from one. 2008. A lovely choice.”

 

“What did you do there?,” he asked her.

 

She glanced at him and there was something in her eyes but she flicked her hand, as though banishing memories.

 

“A little of this, a little of that,” she shrugged, “A bit of bookkeeping, I helped out with tastings - that’s when I realised that I was good with clients. Mostly I stole away to a very large willow tree and read the classics.”

 

The peach Dornish sky, acres and acres of grapes. She’d walk across the land, in a white linen dress, a love story tucked under her arm, chomping gingerly on a plum.

 

He could picture it. In truth, it was a prettier picture than any held in that auction house she worked at.

 

But it was a mere picture, not the whole story.

 

“Your Uncle sounds like a far better employer than my father,” he said lightly.

 

“But the dental plan sucked,” she quipped back.

 

She was sharp, and quick, that mind of hers alight with a hundred thousand currents.

 

“But you were happy,” he guessed.

 

She glanced at him and to his complete shock her eyes were glistening. She smiled though, a grand, pure smile, and for a moment she nearly stole the breath from his body.

 

“It was the happiest summer of my life,” she confessed.

 

“Well,” he said and picked up his wine glass, “To you, Myrcella Baratheon, who is happiest in rebellion.”

 

She clinked her glass against his and shook her head at him before taking a sip.

 

“So,” he said, as he glanced back at his menu. “Are you going to tell me about him?”

 

“My Uncle Tyrion? You’ve met him…,” she said.

 

He placed his menu down and took hers from her as well. She glanced at him and he fixed her with a look.

 

“The boy,” he corrected. Her eyebrow shot up, and whatever else she may be, she was Jaime Lannister’s niece. That little gesture was a reminder of that. “The one who made it the happiest summer of your life.”

 

***

 

He was good. Very good. He didn’t miss a thing, even when she’d like him to.

 

She never spoke about that summer. Her family never brought it up. Not once.

 

When she’d returned from Dorne her mother had simply told her to wash up for dinner, as though she’d just returned from shopping. She did glance meaningfully at the two men flanking her, the ones who had stood over her while she packed her things, who had escorted her to the plane waiting for her. They followed her up the stairs and stood outside her bedroom. When she’d glanced outside she’d noticed another station underneath her balcony.

 

Their constant presence for the next year of her life was the only proof that anything had ever happened at all.

 

She never spoke of it with her friends either. They wouldn’t understand, they never could, not without the whole story. And they’d never know the whole story. But while she had spent the summer pouring wine for tourists in the great stone cellar, they had been travelling through Essos, staying in five star resorts. They couldn’t understand, they had no desire to escape the lives set out for them.

 

She hadn’t seen Trystane since the night before Sandor or Gregor came for her. Hadn’t spoken to him. She’d written him a letter that first October, when it felt like she might die from missing him, from the sheer pain of being herself - the girl who had everything. He had never replied though.

 

She shrugged, “He was handsome, and older, and kind, and I was sixteen. There didn’t have to be more to it than that.”

 

“There didn’t have to be,” he agreed, “But I’ll reckon that there was.” She opened her mouth to protest but he waved her away, “You don’t have to tell me anything. But you could… tell me anything that is. I’ll bet full disclosure isn’t the sort of thing that comes too easily to you, and that’s something you and I have in common.”

 

“A privilege of the privileged,” she said with a tight smile.

 

“Poor little rich kids,” he smiled, “The oldest tale in the world. The point is, Myrcella,” he said and slid just a little closer to her, his fingers stroking that shell that seemed to fascinate him so. “I’d never deny a beautiful woman her secrets. But if they have become burdens, just know that you don’t have to carry them alone.”

 

“We’ve only just met,” she reminded him. “You go around making offers like that to just any girl you meet?”

 

“That’s the thing,” he said, his voice dropping an octave, “You’re not just any girl, are you? And the truth is Myrcella Baratheon, I’d like to know just about everything there is to know about you…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to know what you all think! xo


	5. Chapter 5

Robb walked into the Oak Bar at 7:55 on Thursday night and waved to the maitre’d, gesturing to the back bar. He made a flourishing sweep of his hand and Robb walked through.

 

He found a corner that Myrcella would describe as _cozy_ and sat down in one of the big leather chairs. She would be here in a few minutes and he gestured for the waiter so that he could have a martini waiting for her when she arrived.

 

He ordered her martini and his scotch and fought the urge to loosen his tie.

 

It hadn’t been an easy day, there had been some clauses written into the contract that he hadn’t agreed to and they had learned that one of the sites was not up to code.

 

He was ready for a scotch. Myrcella too, would be a distraction. She was good at that, she was such a presence that she brought you out of your own life and into her orbit. He had noticed it during the first dinner, when he’d found himself telling her a story from college even though he had been the one looking for information. She’d had tears in her eyes she was laughing so hard though, and she kept asking him questions, and her take on it was so unique and humorous that he’d found himself laughing along.

 

He’d have to keep things on course tonight though. So far he had gotten nothing out of her, even when he’d mentioned something he’d witnessed between Tyrion and her grandfather. She had merely shrugged and said, “ _My grandfather becomes a total beast when my mother gets him on one of her juice cleanses._ ”

 

He didn’t quite believe her that there wasn’t more to it, he knew some of their history, and Tywin’s preference for Jaime was the least concealed secret in the country, but the idea of Tywin Lannister manfully swallowing some sort of kale potion at the behest of his daughter was too tempting to resist. Soon he was pestering her with questions all about that, and she regaled him with tales of when her mother went through her salmon diet phase and she had to go stay with her Uncle Jaime so that her clothes wouldn’t smell.

 

It wasn’t exactly high-level espionage, but he had tried to continue her down her path of revelations. She had merely shook her head and then asked him if his mother gave into any fad diets and if his sister Sansa was really as beautiful as everyone always said and what _was_ his diet because he has _a very lovely body, didn’t you know?_

 

He had decided earlier that day that if he didn’t get anything out of her tonight, he would end things. It wasn’t in his nature to be cruel, and he’d learned over their dates that she in particular did not deserve his cruelty. She was proud, but most of that was bravado, and spoiled, though hardly rotten, but the truth was, above everything else, she was kind.

 

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he wondered if it was her telling him she was running late. She had been working horrible hours in preparation for the auction that had happened last night, but he had figured that she would be able to take it a little easier in the wake of it.

 

It was Jon though.

 

“Snow,” he answered.

 

“Stark,” Jon returned, “I got your voicemail, what in seven hells happened today?”

 

Robb grimaced, “I’m in public so I can’t really talk about it, let’s just say though that I want our lawyers sifting through these contracts with the tiniest fucking comb you’ve ever seen. _I_ was the one who caught the extra clauses today, what the fuck are we paying them for?”

 

“Look they’ve always served your family well,” Jon sighed.

 

“Yeah well, they’re out of their league,” Robb told him. “You’re not here, alright? You have no idea what we’re -“

 

“Aye and what do you think _I’m_ doing up here?,” Jon snapped at him. “Do you think we’re all up here twiddling our thumbs while you do our work for us?”

 

Robb sighed and rubbed his eyes, “No. I don’t.”

 

“Look your father wants me to come down there,” Jon said after a moment.

 

Robb’s blood went cold, “What? Why?” Jon was silent for a moment. That silence told him everything he needed to know. “Sending you down here is a mistake.”

 

“Thanks brother,” Jon said lightly.

 

Robb shook his head, “No, no… they… they’ll see it as a sign of weakness.”

 

“That’s what I told him,” Jon assured him. “So I staved that off. For now. But Robb… you’ve got to see how this looks… this whole deal hangs in the balance and you’re wining and dining some twenty-three year old…”

 

 _She’s twenty-five_ , Robb thought petulantly.

 

“And if my father is so concerned about that, why isn’t he the one calling?,” Robb challenged him.

 

“You know why,” Jon sighed.

 

The message is in the messenger.

 

His father could have just as easily picked up the phone and called him. In fact, he was probably pacing his office right now trying _not_ to call him. Jon though, being his mouthpiece, explaining that _he_ was the one holding him off, that was the real message.

 

As long as Robb had remembered, there had always been a shadow over his future as the head of Stark Industries. And that shadow had been Jon Snow. His best friend and rival since before he could walk.

 

They had been raised as close as brothers, after Jon’s mother Lyanna, an old family friend of his father’s, passed away. Ned had put Jon through school, had given him internships, had groomed as an heir.

 

Robb knew that some of it was for her, for Lyanna, the girl he’d always regarded as a sister. And that another part of it was for the love that he bore Jon.

 

And a larger part, even still, that was meant to cause him fear. That was meant to inspire him to be better. To remind him that there was another who had been trained just as diligently as he.

 

They were both aware of it, and he knew that Jon would never betray him, but even still, they had always been competitive and Jon wanted a place of his own.

 

“She’s coming here now,” Robb told him, “If I don’t get anything out of her tonight I’ll end it and we’ll come up with something else.”

 

“I saw her in the press conference after the auction last night,” Jon said, “She really is a beauty, huh?”

 

_She is at that._

 

“I guess she is,” he agreed.

 

“And charming too,” Jon went on.

 

“Look if you have something to ask me, just ask,” Robb snapped.

 

“I’m just trying to tell you that I wouldn’t blame you,” Jon explained, “If… you had developed feelings for her. Spending all that time with her… it’d be normal, it’d-“

 

“She’s a means to an end,” Robb told him stoically, “That’s all.”

 

“Look, between you and me,” Jon said, “End it. Tonight.”

 

Robb nodded, though Jon couldn’t see him, and hung up on the phone.

 

He took a sip of the scotch that had been placed down in front of him and tried to force his racing heart to return to normal. But he couldn’t.

 

Just then he felt a pair of arms wrap around his neck from behind, and the scent of jasmine surrounded him.

 

“Hi handsome,” Myrcella cooed in his ear, her head falling on his shoulder, “I’ve had a rotten day.”

 

 _Me too_.

 

He rubbed her hand, “It’s about to get better, promise.”

 

She gave him a soft, lingering kiss on the cheek and then leaned her forehead against his temple, “It already has.”

 

And just like that, his heart slowed to that steady _thud, thud, thud_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ya'll still with me?


	6. Chapter 6

“Alright tough guy, come _on_ , ten more,” Bronn taunted him, “Show me what you got.”

 

Robb grunted and punched his gloved hands with more fervour, if only to shut him up.

 

His trainer chuckled when he was done, “What’s up _your_ ass today?”

 

Robb unstrapped his boxing gloves and picked up his water bottle, squirting some into his mouth. He grabbed a towel and wiped his face off which was dripping in sweat.

 

Bronn shoved him, “Come on man, I’ve trained you nearly every day since you arrived in this shit city and I’ve never seen you like this.”

 

“Just work,” Robb evaded.

 

“Bullshit,” Bronn called him, “No man is ever this bent out of shape over _work_. So either someone’s fucking you or _not_ fucking you, which is it?”

 

_“Hi handsome,” Myrcella smiled, stepping forward and planting a kiss to the corner of his lips._

 

_“Hi,” he said tightly. “Listen we have to talk-“_

 

_Her eyes flashed with something but she nodded calmly, “Of course, but first I really need your help with something.”_

 

He was about to just do it right then and there, just tell her that there was no future and that as lovely as she was it would be all together easier if they called everything off now. She wasn’t going to give him anything useful, that was clear. He had no reason to continue things.

 

But then she gave him one of those smiles. The one that travelled down into his ribcage and made itself nice and cozy.

 

_“Okay, gorgeous,” he sighed, “Put me to work.”_

 

_She pulled him inside and closed the door. She stepped back in front of him and then turned around._

 

_“My zipper is stuck,” she all but pouted._

 

_He chuckled lightly and moved her soft golden hair. His finger traced her back collar._

 

_Rather than undo the zipper he hooked his finger inside her collar and pulled her back slightly._

 

_“This tired trick is beneath you,” he all but growled in her ear._

 

_She giggled lightly, as though his presence didn’t affect her at all._

 

_“I’m not seducing you,” she told him, though the way her eyes bore into his suggested she just might be a little. She grinned at him challengingly, “You don’t believe me? Try the zipper.”_

 

_He sighed and started to tug it down, but it stopped after only an inch. He pinched the top of the fabric together and tugged again but it stopped at the exact same point. He pulled up the zipper and pinched a little bit lower, and yet again, the zipper stuck in the exact same place._

 

_“Told ya,” Myrcella said cheekily._

 

_He tried again and grunted._

 

_Finally he asked, “How attached to this dress are you, anyway?”_

 

_She shrugged, and proved herself every inch the heiress when she said, “I have others. Why?”_

 

_Rather than answer her he tore the back of her dress apart, the silky material splitting in his hands easily._

 

_He hadn’t really thought this far ahead, and now with her body exposed to him, he found that he couldn’t really think at all. Her bra and underwear were matching cream silk, and while her slender body was no more exposed to him than she would be on the beach, she was more exposed than she ever had been all the same._

 

_His fingers trailed down her back on their own accord and he nearly groaned when he saw goosebumps appear all over her body immediately. He wondered if her nipples were peaked._

 

_She leaned her head back against his chest, her temple falling against his chin._

 

_“I’m not sleeping with you,” she warned._

 

_“Pity that,” he said._

 

“I’m not the kind of man who gets bent out of shape over some girl,” Robb scoffed.

 

“Don’t fuck with a fucker, mate,” Bronn argued. “ _Every_ man is the kind of man who gets bent out of shape over some girl. Just depends on how sweet that cunt of hers is.”

 

_Myrcella chuckled and pushed him away, “Make yourself comfortable, I’m going to do the same.”_

 

_He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat on the couch._

 

_“I thought we were going out,” he called to her._

 

_“Huh?,” she called back._

 

_“Out!,” he shouted back._

 

_Just like that she ran out of her bedroom, her eyes alarmed._

 

_“What in Seven Hells?,” she asked in annoyance._

 

_“I thought we were going out,” he said calmly._

 

_And admittedly a bit smugly, because she was still standing there in her underwear. She was a goddess, the maiden made flesh, every inch of her designed to torture him._

 

_She scrunched her nose and picked up a throw pillow and whipped it at him. He caught it easily, laughing at her as she stormed back into her bedroom._

 

_It was impressive the way she could look so dignified in her underthings. He could almost imagine her in a crown._

 

_When she disappeared he noticed that his hands were clenched. He groaned, leaning his head back against the couch._

 

_He was going to do it, as soon as she came back out. It had gone too far already. He was supposed to do it the other night. Truly he should have done it weeks before._

 

_Should have never started it in the first place._

 

_She came out wearing a cream satin pajama shorts and a grey cashmere sweater, her hair up in a bun, a few golden tendrils falling around her face._

 

_She hopped on the couch next to him and laid her legs in his lap._

 

_“It was a really long week. I’m sick of people,” she explained, “Do you mind terribly if we stay in?”_

 

_Her green eyes searched his, and the birthmark underneath her right eye was winking at him. He realised in that moment that she didn’t consider him people. And he realised to his horror that he didn’t consider her people either. A half hour ago he had been seething in annoyance and yet now, in the quiet sanctuary of her apartment, he was perfectly calm._

 

_“No,” he told her, “I don’t mind.”_

 

_“Good,” she grinned, kissing his cheek, “Because I made snickerdoodles.”_

 

_“You made snickerdoodles?,” he asked in confusion._

 

_“Yeah, they’re you’re favourite right?,” she asked._

 

_With that she got up and wandered into the kitchen and came back with two cookies on a paper napkin._

 

_“You worked until 11 last night,” he pointed out stupidly as she offered the cookie to him._

 

_“I’m aware,” she said, sitting back down on the couch._

 

_She took a bite of one of the cookies and her eyes went wide and glanced up at him. She nodded with a smile on her face, clearly content with her baking skills._

 

_“So you shouldn’t be making my favourite anything when you’re working so hard, you have to take care of yourself.” He took a bite of the cookie and it was so obnoxiously delicious he couldn’t stand it. He pulled her to him and kissed her, “Forget what I said. I’m an idiot.”_

 

_She giggled, and sat up on her knees, draping her arms around his neck._

 

 _“Well_ that _I know,” she teased. She leaned in and kissed him again, and she tasted like cinnamon and sugar and her. Before she pulled away she rubbed her nose against his and a warm molasses spread through his veins. Her green eyes looked into his and her brow furrowed. “You wanted to speak to me. Is something wrong?”_

 

_That was his chance. It would be so easy. He was meant to be leaving in two weeks time. He could tell her that this was getting out of hand, that they would both end up getting hurt. It would be so easy to walk away from her._

 

_She wasn’t going to give him in anything. He could achieve nothing from this, would garner no information, no insight._

 

_“No,” he shook his head, “What could be wrong?,” he asked lightly, and pulled her into his lap. She seemed to fit so well. He tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, rubbing the soft shell of it. “I just wanted to speak to you about the masked ball on Thursday. Do you think it would be better if we arrived together or separately?”_

 

_She gave him a smile that was heartbreaking twice over, once for the relief he saw in it, and the other for the sheer beauty of it._

 

_“Together,” she grinned, “Together is infinitely better.”_

 

They hadn’t slept together, but they hadn’t needed to. He knew what it would be like. Perfection.

 

He wasn’t sure exactly when it had happened, but he had come to care for her more than he’d ever cared for any other girl. In trying to uncover the darkest secrets of her family, he had simply found a girl. A bright, clever girl, with a sadness locked away somewhere deep inside of her.

 

She made him laugh, at himself, at the world, and she challenged his beliefs without even trying, and when he kissed her the world went smudgy at the edges.

 

He’d gone over there to end it, and instead he had left in the wee hours, half in love and completely fucked.

 

“Not everything in life is about cunts,” Robb sneered.

 

“You’re probably right,” Bronn nodded, and then grinned, “But this sure as fuck is. So what’s the problem?”

 

_He raised his arm to hail a taxi as he answered Jon’s call. He had been avoiding him since the Oak Bar. Since Jon had told him to end it. Since he promised that he would._

 

_“Hey mate,” he said in as light a tone as he could manage._

 

_“How’s it going?,” Jon asked._

 

_“Good,” Robb told him, “They’ve agreed to our stock percentages.”_

 

_Jon whistled, “Nicely done. Didn’t think we’d get that one by them. I hope you stuck in a few extra percentages for yourself for that bit of diplomacy.”_

 

_Robb chuckled, “I have no idea why everyone thinks I am the brains of our generation. A shrewd mind like that is a dangerous thing…”_

 

_Jon chuckled, and then ventured, “And what about our little lioness? Did she tell you the secrets of the universe?”_

 

_“You were right,” Robb told him truthfully, “She isn’t going to give up anything useful.”_

 

_“It was a worthy attempt,” Jon allowed, then assumed, “So you ended it. How’d she take it?”_

 

Later that evening, he’d be sitting on Myrcella’s couch, being given the opportunity to tell the truth, just like he was in that moment.

 

And in both instances he would swallow his guilt and lie.

 

_“Not great, but she’s a tough little thing,” Robb told him, “I explained I’d be heading north soon and would be doing everything I could to never come back to this shit city…”_

 

_“Robb, you didn’t…,” Jon chuckled, horrified._

 

_No, I didn’t._

 

“The problem is I’m standing here talking to you when I could be fucking her,” Robb lied once again. “Same time tomorrow?”

 

***

 

“I don’t want to hear it Mother,” Myrcella grumbled.

 

“Well you’re _going_ to hear it,” her mother snapped, “He doesn’t deserve you.”

 

Myrcella bent down to look at some peonies and pointed to them. The florist grabbed a couple as she meandered over to the Braavosi Tulips. She gestured to a few pale peach ones and grabbed a small potted jasmine plant for her kitchen.

 

“Yes well, according to you, no one does,” she reminded her mother.

 

“I’m just trying to keep you from making the same mistakes I did,” her mother told her. “I met a man when I was your age, and he was from a different place and he was tall and dark and handsome and he said all the right things and he was just a little bit dangerous -“

 

“Robb is not Dad,” Myrcella snapped, “And quite frankly I’d appreciate it if you would refrain from speaking ill of of him to me. He’s dead… you won.”

 

“Myrcella!,” her mother gasped in faux-horror.

 

Myrcella rolled her eyes. It took far more than that to shock Cersei Lannister.

 

She smiled at the florist who began to wrap everything for her. She loved her Saturday morning trips to the florist. She’d go to the bakery next, to pick up fresh bread and then to the cheese shop. Saturday morning errands were sacred to her.

 

She’d leave her work cell phone at her apartment, and wouldn’t check it again until the evening before she went wherever she was going.

 

Unfortunately, her mother knew about this little ritual of hers and more often than not chose to ruin it by calling her. Not that she saw it that way, of course.

 

“I’m sorry,” she lied, “That was out of line.”

 

“I don’t know what’s gotten into you recently,” her mother told her, “I don’t like the influence this northern boy has on you. Jaime says he’s a barbarian.”

 

_That’s only because he’s as good a diplomat as Uncle Tyrion, and as shrewd a businessman as Grandfather._

 

“He is,” Myrcella admitted casually, just to get a rise out of her.

 

If Saturday morning trips to the florist were one of life’s simple pleasures, so was annoying her mother.

 

“Well if you insist on continuing this affair, I’ll have to meet him,” her mother said resignedly, as though that was not the entire purpose of her calling to begin with.

 

“To what end?,” Myrcella wondered, “He’s heading north in a couple of weeks. I’m sure it will all resolve itself in time. Best you don’t get _too_ attached.”

 

She had been telling herself that for the better part of two weeks. _He’s leaving_ , a little voice in her head told her every time she smiled when she saw his name on her caller ID. _It will never last,_ that voice warned when his kisses left her breathless.

 

“I can see now that you are determined to be impossible,” her mother lamented, “As such, I suggest you call me when you stop being such a brat.”

 

“Of course, Mother, love you.”

 

“Oh but Myrcella, don’t wait too long, I’ve made a reservation for three for Friday evening.”

 

With that her mother clicked off triumphantly and Myrcella stifled the urge to scream. It was so typical, acting as though it was a conversation when all the while an edict was coming, that she was more frustrated with herself for not realising it than she was with her mother for doing it.

 

_“Oh no, who do I need to have a word with?,” her father asked as he found her hiding under his desk._

 

_“Nobody,” she said quietly._

 

_She was six years old, she was no tattle-tale._

 

_“Is that right?,” he asked, getting onto the floor. He didn’t try to pull her out from underneath his desk, he just got underneath it with her. He was far too big for it and made a show of the ordeal. “What do you have there?”_

 

_Her hands gripped the piece of teacup harder. He pried it from her gently and looked over it._

 

_“This was your grandmother’s favorite,” he told her, the disappointment clear in his voice._

 

_“I know,” she nodded, her lower lip trembling._

 

_“That’s why she wanted you to have it,” he told her, and then leaned in conspiratorially, “Because you were her favorite too.”_

 

_“I’m sorry,” she told him honestly._

 

_“Did you tell your mother that Joffrey broke it?,” her father asked her and she looked up at him in surprise._

 

_She shook her head slowly._

 

_She had been so excited that Joffrey had wanted to play with her. He never wanted to play with her, he thought her and Tommy’s games were stupid and childish._

 

_So she had eagerly accepted when he offered to have a tea party with them, even telling her that they should round up their favourite stuffed animals to be extra guests._

 

_“Your brother is selfish, Myrcella, and jealous. He doesn’t have your natural way with people, and he hates how loved you are.”_

 

_“What do I do to make him like me?,” she wondered, thinking of how Joffrey had held the chipped teacup to her skin, causing a painful indent that she wouldn’t dare show her father._

 

_“Oh, my little doe,” he said, pulling her into her lap, “You could lead armies, wars would be started over this face of yours. You are going to be beloved, because you are good, and brave. But you will never have his love. Never. He’s shown you who he is now, hasn’t he?”_

 

_“Yes Daddy,” she answered, knowing it was the one that he wanted._

 

_“If there’s one lesson I could give you, little one, it’s this: When a person tells you who they really are, listen.”_

 

Her mother had always been this way. She had learned parenting from her father, having lost her mother when she was only a child, and Myrcella knew that Tywin Lannister was not an easy tutor. She parented as though it were a game of chess - as though her children were opponents to outsmart at every turn.

 

And Myrcella knew this, and even still she fell prey to her gambits.

 

She thanked the florist and grabbed her bundles and walked out into the brisk fall air.

 

“Oy, nice ass!,” someone called to her.

 

She was in no mood to be catcalled, and she whipped around to give him a piece of her mind.

 

But there was Robb Stark, dressed down in dark jeans and a grey sweater, looking freshly showered and gorgeous, a grin on his face that was part cocky, part simply happy.

 

“You almost got an earful,” she admonished him, though a warm honey spread through her veins at the mere sight of him.

 

He crossed to her and took her bundles in one hand.

 

“Well, it’s not like it’s not true,” he reasoned with her, giving her butt a playful tap, before wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her to him.

 

She tilted her face up to his and his lips pressed against hers softly. She had never been much one for PDA, but it didn’t stop her now from opening her mouth slightly, so that she could take his lip between hers. Her heart was an erratic pitter patter but the world had taken on the haziness that always accompanied his affection.

 

“How did you track me down?,” she wondered when they parted.

 

“I didn’t,” he grinned, “I was heading in to buy some flowers when I saw you.”

 

“For who?,” she teased.

 

“Just some girl I’m seeing,” he shrugged.

 

“I’m heading to the bakery next, will you come with me?”

 

“I suppose I could be convinced to buy her a baguette instead of a bouquet.”

 

She hooked her arm through his and they started walking down the street towards the next store. She leaned her cheek against his strong arm.

 

“You alright?,” he asked her.

 

“Fine,” she lied brightly. He stopped walking and she peered up at him. His face prompted her to go on, and his stance told her he wasn’t going to start walking again until she did. “My mother called.”

 

“Oh,” he nodded, leading her down the road once again. “Mother’s can be difficult.”

 

“That’s it?,” she wondered, “You’re usually so curious about the Lannisters…”

 

He was silent for a moment and she glanced up at him once again. He wouldn’t meet her gaze but he said after a while, “And you usually have no interest in talking about them. I just didn’t want to pry… but talk to me… what’s going on?”

 

“She thinks we are ill-suited,” she told him honestly.

 

There would be no point in hiding it from him, especially if this dinner was to happen.

 

“Quite an opinion to have when she’s never seen us together or even met me,” he pointed out.

 

She smiled at that, “Cersei Lannister does not need to _meet_ a person to think poorly of them. The mere fact that you aren’t a blood relative is enough to damn you.”

 

“You’d think someone who cared so much for her children would want them to be happy,” he suggested.

 

“In all honesty,” Myrcella admitted, “I think that she does. The trouble is, she doesn’t know me well enough to know what makes me happy.”

 

“Like a winery in Dorne?,” Robb guessed aptly. He raised one of the bundles and went on, “And Braavosi Tulips?”

 

“And you,” she nodded, looking straight ahead.

 

He stopped her, and before she knew it, her back was against the wall of a store front. She looked up into his blue eyes and found them wild.

 

“I’m leaving in two weeks,” he reminded her, as though she didn’t have the date of his departure circled in red on her calendar. “And I’m not coming back.”

 

“Then walk away,” she dared him.

 

“Isn’t it obvious by now?,” he asked her, “I _can’t_.”

 

She knew that he had tried. He’d come over last night to break up with her, that was obvious. But he hadn’t, and by the time he’d left she’d been dizzy and half in love with him.

 

“Then stop,” she ordered him. “Stop playing whatever games you’ve been playing,” he went to protest and she held her hand up, “Don’t deny it. You’ve been fighting this every step of the way, even as you actively pursued me and I’m sick of it.”

 

His eyes wandered over her and he asked, “How can you still want me, knowing that?”

 

“Because in the moments when you’ve forgotten - forgotten that you’re leaving, or who our families are, forgotten everything except what you were feeling for _me_ in that moment - in those moments you told me who you really were. And _that_ man is someone worthy of me. So be him, now, or I _will_ walk away, because unlike you I _can_ leave behind the things that I want. I’m well practiced in it.”

 

He rested the bundles on the ground and he took her face in his hands, “No more.” His eyes wandered over her face as though that puzzle piece that had been missing all that time had finally been found. As though he’d had it all along. “I’ll be him - the man you want me to be, the man you’ve seen in me. I haven’t been, but I will be now. And no matter what’s happened in the past, from this moment onwards, I will always do right by you. Do you hear me?”

 

_There he is._

 

She nodded, “I’m listening.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ahhh we are finally getting to the place that I really wanted to take this story. Buckle up, because the next few chapters are going to be hectic. 
> 
> I'd love to know what you think! xox

Myrcella fought the urge to moan as Robb pinned her against her door. His lips were pressed against her neck and one hand had disappeared into her hair, the other was trailing down her ribcage.

 

“ _Robb_ ,” she sighed.

 

This was unlike her. She really wasn’t one for public displays of affection and she certainly wasn’t one to be pinned against the door of her apartment and engaging in what could only be described as heavy petting. She only had one neighbour on this floor, a meddlesome ageing widow, who was sure to mention it the next time they ran into one another in the elevator.

 

With Robb’s hands on her body though, she found it very difficult to care.

 

“Let me in,” he pleaded against her ear, his breath tickling it before his teeth trailed the shell of it. She shivered against him and he pushed his leg in between hers, his hand moving around her waist to her back and pulling her against him. “ _Myrcella_.”

 

Her name came out like a prayer and a curse all at once and she couldn’t stop herself from yanking him by his hair back up to kiss her lips. He groaned into her mouth and she sucked his bottom lip between hers, her fingernails scratching his scalp.

 

“No,” she argued without releasing him.

 

She was pretty sure she was telling herself more than him.

 

They had spent all day together. They had gone to the bakery and then had lunch along the river. She’d taken him to her favourite flea market, where he’d picked up trinkets for his sisters - an antique thimble for Sansa and an old warrior’s shield for Arya - and then they’d wandered into a little wine bar. They’d ordered a bottle, and some cheese, and another bottle after that.

 

He’d taken what she’d said to heart, because all day long he’d been the man she’d caught glimpses of for the past month. Quick to laugh, but insightful too. Caring without being smothering and confident without being boastful.

 

She’d told him more than she had ever told him before, snippets really, about her father and Trystane, about her mother and her grandfather and even her brothers. All of them.

 

It turns out he had guessed about Gendry, but he’d never asked because he hadn’t wanted to pry.

 

And somewhere along the afternoon she had admitted to herself what she had been denying since she’d met him. That it wasn’t just a fling, and it wasn’t just fun, that he had found his way into her bloodstream and that her life would never be the same now that she’d met him.

 

He let out another groan and his fist smacked into her door, “Damn it, Myrcella, I feel like I’m going _insane_. I can’t go North without having you.”

 

She pushed him away and chuckled, “You’re terrible at this.”

 

“Is that right?,” he asked her. He stepped closer to her, that cocky grin causing the dimples she adored to appear, “That’s not what it sounded like a minute ago.”

 

He went to kiss her again and she stopped him with a hand to his chest. He straightened up immediately, the mirth gone from his gaze. He may beg her, but he’d never push.

 

She smiled at him and wiped his lips to rid her lipstick from him.

 

“You just told me you couldn’t go North until you had me,” she reminded him, pulling him closer, her lips nearing his, “Now what kind of incentive is that for a girl who’d very much like you to stay?”

 

He groaned and let his head fall against her forehead, but she was already turning and unlocking her door.

 

“Goodnight Mr. Stark,” she cooed at him before closing the door behind her.

 

***

 

Robb nodded to Myrcella’s doorman Sid on his way out of her building. He was wired, filled with a manic sort of energy and he wasn’t entirely sure what to do about it.

 

Early on, when he was telling himself this was just to get information, he would have gone out after their dates. Even then, the look of her and the smell of her and the feel of her breath catching against him had driven him wild, and he’d leave her and find the nearest bar. He’d have a whiskey, calm his nerves, convince himself to go hit on the girl at the end of the bar, because he didn’t owe Myrcella anything.

 

 _It isn’t real_ , he’d tell himself.

 

And when the girl at the end of the bar could not inspire the desire that had only an hour before been threatening to consume him, he’d go back to his hotel and take himself in his hand. He’d think of beauties with long black hair and violet eyes, buxom brunettes and alluring redheads. And he would pretend that he had not come to the image of a pair of jade eyes, or the imaginings of a slim golden figure in his grasp.

 

Now though, he could not even try to go to the bar and find someone else. It was real, it had always been real, and he’d never betray her again. Because the truth was, he had always owed Myrcella something, and he’d spent whatever time he had left in this world repaying his debt to her.

 

Today had been one of the best days of his life, which is the sort of grand statement that had always seemed false when he heard others use it. The truth of it was, though, that Myrcella had been right, of course. She didn’t know just how right, but she was too clever not to notice it. In fact, she had noticed it before he did.

 

That at some point, in every evening they spent in one another’s company, he’d forget his true purpose for being there, and just _be there_ , with her. That she had the ability to pull him out of himself, and make him dance to her tune when he was the one who was meant to be dictating the beat.

 

Today though, his only focus had been on being with her, being worthy of her, and though he wasn’t sure he’d even come close, he’d spent the rest of his life trying if it was filled with days like this.

 

There was something still holding her back, and that was okay. He could feel the desire radiating off of her, he knew she wanted to give in, but he’d never push her.

 

So for tonight, his hand would have to suffice. The only comfort being that he wouldn’t have to waste his time trying to think of other women, he could think all about _her._

 

The way her fingernails dug into his scalp, and the feel of her breasts pressed against him. The breathless giggle, alight with triumph, and the way her body moulded to his.

 

He was suddenly eager to get back to his hotel. He looked up to hail a cab and nearly fell backwards.

 

“Stark.”

 

“Jon,” he gulped, looking behind him briefly before asking, “What are you doing here?”

 

He hadn’t seen Jon in over a month, and he was almost expecting that he’d look different. He was just the same though, head to toe black, his hair pulled back in a leather cord, his beard trimmed neatly, his mouth turned downwards.

 

“I’ve come to assist with negotiations,” he said almost apologetically, “Your father is eager for their conclusion.”

 

“As am I,” Robb nodded, “But I told you that you being here won’t help things. They’ll either see it as a threat, or they’ll see it as a sign of weakness. Either way it won’t achieve what my father would like it to. They trust me.”

 

Jon smirked at that, “Some of them anyway.”

 

That put Robb on the defensive, “Look whatever you think you -“

 

“I saw you,” Jon interrupted. Robb unwittingly looked back at the building, wondering if Jon had witnessed the high school make out session he’d just been engaged in. “When you helped her into her coat.”

 

“When I -,” Robb started, then looked at him accusingly, “At the bar? You’ve been spying on me? For how long?”

 

“Calm down,” Jon sighed, “I just got in today. Don’t change the subject. I _saw_ you.”

 

“You saw me what?,” Robb challenged, “Help her into her coat? She’s used to a certain standard of treatment. She’s a total priss, she wouldn’t let me within ten feet of her if I didn’t treat her properly.”

 

His stomach knotted uncomfortably. In truth, Myrcella wasn’t prissy. She had standards for herself, as she should, as any woman should, but she was remarkably unsnobby all things considered.

 

Jon narrowed his eyes at him and Robb clenched his jaw.

 

“I saw what you did _while_ you were helping her into her coat,” Jon told him, “You… ran your fingers through a lock of her hair.”

 

Robb chuckled, “Man are you even _listening_ to yourself? It’s all part of -“

 

“She didn’t notice,” Jon shook his head, “It wasn’t for her. And either way - what happened to ending it? Isn’t that what you said you did?”

 

Robb had so often been met with the opportunity to tell the truth recently that he no longer even realised he was ignoring it.

 

“I did. But she called tonight, I was bored and she’s hot,” he shrugged as nonchalantly as he could. He gave Jon a grin and said, “And all over me. She was begging me to come inside.”

 

Jon looked at him, with an undisguised look of disgust, “You’re lying. Definitely to me, and very possibly to yourself.”

 

Robb opened his mouth to protest but Jon’s eyes had left him and Robb turned around.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

“Oh good, you got my text,” Myrcella smiled at him and lifted up a small bundle in her arms, “You forgot your brioche.”

 

He was speechless for a moment, and he couldn’t say if it was out of fear for what was to come next or the way the light from her building was casting her in a hazy glow.

 

“Thanks,” he said tersely.

 

He didn’t miss the way she started slightly at his tone.

 

“You must be Myrcella,” a voice he’d never heard said from behind him. It took him a moment to understand that it was Jon, that the jovial, gracious tone was actually coming from him. It was impossible to deny though when he stepped in front of him and crossed to her, “I have heard so much about you. I’m Jon Snow Robb’s-“

 

“Best friend, of course!,” Myrcella said sweetly, “I feel like I know you already… I didn’t know you were coming into town! Robb you _beast_ , you didn’t tell me.”

 

“Oh _don’t_ blame him,” Jon leaned in conspiratorially, “I was completely unexpected.”

 

It was entirely possible that he was having an out of body experience, not that Myrcella or Jon seemed to notice.

 

“Oh!,” she smiled, “Well I’m sure you both have a ton to catch up on, or else I’d invite you up for a drink but -“

 

“We’d love to!,” Jon practically gushed at her.

 

“But we can’t,” Robb shook his head solemnly.

 

They turned in tandem to look at him and Jon challenged, “And why not?”

 

“Because we have a reservation…,” he said pointedly, all but growling at him. Jon only grinned.

 

“How could you have a reservation if you didn’t know he was coming?,” Myrcella asked him.

 

Jon winked at him and turned back to her, “I think he’s afraid I’ll tell you all his secrets. Isn’t that right, Robb?”

 

At this point he was pretty sure he had sweat through his dress shirt and he was debating between three different ways of killing Jon. Snapping his neck seemed like the most efficient, but the idea of slowly strangling him also had an appeal.

 

Myrcella merely laughed though and hooked her arm through Jon’s.

 

“Start with the middle school years and leave _nothing_ embarrassing out!”

 

***

 

There was something very wrong.

 

Jon, whom by all accounts was a bit of a buzzkill had been cracking her up with stories of his and Robb’s misadventures and thwarted plots the whole way up to her apartment while Robb, who was always so vibrant and animated had suddenly turned sullen and introspective.

 

“You have a lovely home, Myrcella,” Jon said to her as she brought them into her living room.

 

“Thank you, Jon,” she smiled at him, “Please make yourself at home, I’ll just go fix drinks. Robb told me you love whiskey, but I also have beer or wine if you’d prefer?”

 

Jon grinned at Robb, “Consummate hostess, isn’t she? Whiskey would be great if it’s not too much trouble.”

 

“Of course not,” she shook her head and crossed to Robb. She traced his upper arm with her fingertips and found it tensed. She asked him softly, “Whiskey for you too?”

 

“Sure,” he answered in that voice that she had never heard before this evening but had now heard twice in the span of ten minutes.

 

She stepped away and went into the kitchen, pouring herself a glass of wine before anything else. She felt like her mother as she let the rich liquid pour over her tongue.

 

There was something going on, what it was exactly she couldn’t be sure. She took a sip and a calm steadying breath and then went into the bar off the kitchen to grab the whiskey.

 

She opened her cabinet to grab out two tumblers but found that she couldn’t reach.

 

She sighed and peered her head out of the kitchen. She found Jon and Robb in some sort of heated conversation but pretended that she didn’t.

 

“Robb, can I borrow your manliness for a moment?,” she cooed.

 

Without a word Robb stood up and came into the kitchen. He raised his eyebrows at her and she pointed to the open cupboard, up to the third shelf.

 

He went and grabbed the tumblers and set them down on the counter and went to leave the kitchen.

 

“I really hope you’re not the kind of man that sulks when you don’t get what you want,” she warned him. Finding no point in subtleties, “It’s very disappointing.”

 

She knew that he wanted to sleep with her. In truth, she wanted to sleep with him too. She lost time thinking about it, the two of them together. But there was something holding her back, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on, that warned her not to.

 

And it was always in her mother’s voice.

 

“What?,” he asked her.

 

She turned to him and placed her hands on her hips, “This mood of yours. It better not be because I wouldn’t sleep with you.”

 

He looked at her blankly and then his face fell in horror. He was to her in less than a second and cupped her cheeks in his hands.

 

“Of course it’s not,” he promised, and then offered her his half smile, “Do you know how much sexier you are to me because you wouldn’t let me in?,” he leaned down and kissed her neck, and half whispered half growled, “Even though I know you wanted to.”

 

“Now how would you know a thing like that?,” she asked him, bunching his sweater in her hands.

 

He looked down at her, and his gaze was enough to set her aflame, “Because I can feel your pulse jump when I do this,” he told her, as he nipped her neck. He leaned in and whispered, “And I can hear your breath hitch, when I do this,” and grazed the shell of her ear with his teeth.

 

“Robb,” she protested, her voice shaky, “Jon’s just in the living room.”

 

“Good,” Robb nodded, picking her up by her waist and setting her on her counter. He pulled her thighs apart and stepped in between them, “Let the bastard wait.”

 

***

 

“Very mature,” Jon nodded as Robb sat down on the couch opposite him.

 

“What?,” he asked innocently.

 

“That shade looks better on her than it does on you,” Jon sighed.

 

Robb wiped his mouth and found Myrcella’s berry coloured lipstick on his fingers.

 

“Most things do,” he shrugged.

 

“So what?,” Jon asked him, “Are you going to be honest now? Are you with her?”

 

“Yes,” Robb nodded.

 

Jon almost look surprised. Whether it was at his admission or the fact that he had made it, he couldn’t be sure.

 

“Does she know?,” Jon asked.

 

“That I’m her boyfriend?,” Robb questioned, “Yeah, mate, she’s aware.”

 

“That’s not what I meant,” Jon told him and Robb’s heart sank.

 

He opened up his mouth to speak further but Jon, loyal even when he didn’t deserve it, shook his head slightly.

 

“Jon, I wasn’t sure if you’d eaten dinner?,” Myrcella asked as she set a tray down on her coffee table that had fruit and cheese and crackers arranged on it.

 

Jon stared at him for a moment, as though he should be ashamed of himself. It was a pointless look, he’d been ashamed for some time now.

 

“Just something quick at the airport, this looks much better, thank you,” Jon said gratefully, the simpering tone gone from his voice.

 

Myrcella smiled and popped a blackberry into her mouth and sat beside him.

 

“Well, to unexpected visitors,” she said, holding up her wine glass.

 

Jon raised his glass of whiskey and shook his head, “No, to you, Myrcella Baratheon.” Myrcella cocked her head adorably and Jon appraised her, as though trying to figure it out. “You’re some girl, to make lions and wolves alike crumble at your feet.”

 

She clinked her glass against his and giggled, “You make me sound very dangerous.”

 

Jon took a sip of his drink and then half grimaced, half smiled, “I’m afraid that you are.”

 

She smiled at Jon kindly but glanced over at him warily. It was that look that struck him with a deeper shame than anything else ever could. She was depending on him, and she wasn’t the sort of girl who depended on anybody for anything.

 

He smiled at her reassuringly and rubbed her back and he felt her spine uncoil under his touch.

 

“So,” she smiled gamely, “I _think_ you left off at Robb’s first kiss. What was her name again?”

 

“Roslin Frey,” he and Jon said in tandem.

 

“Roslin Frey,” Myrcella repeated, nudging against him playfully, “Should I be worried?”

 

Jon chuckled lightly and shook his head, “I wouldn’t say so. She’s now… Aunt Roslin, isn’t it?”

 

“Wait WHAT!?!,” Myrcella cried, setting her drink down on the table.

 

“Get nice and comfortable,” Jon grinned at her, “Because I’m going to tell you a little story about what has now become known as _The Red Wedding_ …”

 

***

 

“Okay, okay, now I _have_ to go,” Jon chuckled.

 

“Nooo,” she protested.

 

“Yessssss,” Robb nodded.

 

She rolled her eyes and stood up, “Fine. Jonathan Snow, _you_ are welcome here anytime.”

 

Jon stood up and grinned, a genuine one. When you knew what to look for, it was easy to spot the difference. His genuine ones were rarer and smaller.

 

“That I will hold you to, Miss Baratheon. I can fully say I now understand what all the fuss is about,” he told her as he grabbed his suit jacket off the back of the couch.

 

“I should head out too,” Robb whispered in her ear, “Make sure he’s all set up with a hotel.”

 

Her heart sank but she turned to him and nodded, “Okay.”

 

“Is that disappointment I detect?,” he asked in a low voice.

 

She smiled, blushing, “Well I just thought you could stay… and um…,” she trailed off and then looked up at him. She all but gulped when she saw the heat in his eyes, “Help me clean up?”

 

Robb didn’t take his eyes off of her when he said, “Jon I assume you’re all set with a hotel.”

 

“Well actually-,” Jon started.

 

“Great, see you tomorrow,” Robb cut him off, his gaze still on her.

 

She let out an embarrassed giggle and hid her face in Robb’s chest. She expected that Jon would chuckle or tease them, but he only thanked her again and left.

 

When he was gone she looked back up at Robb.

 

“Not exactly subtle, are you?,” she asked him with a raised brow.

 

Rather than answer her he wrapped her further in his arms and kissed her with a fervour she’d never felt.

 

His desire inspired her own and she wrapped her arms around his neck, opening her mouth to allow his tongue against hers. She moaned against him when his hand traveled up her rib cage.

 

“ _Gods I want you_ ,” he uttered as his other hand wandered down to her butt and squeezed it for emphasis.

 

“You,” she told him, taking his face in her hands. His eyes were cloudy with want, his mouth open and hungry. “You’re the one I want, now, this, today, _you’re_ the man I was talking about. The one I’ve been looking for,” she kissed him deeply, and then leaned her forehead against his, “The one I’ve been falling for a little more each hour since we met.”

 

She nibbled his jaw and kissed down his neck. He gripped her harshly, pulling her against him and she could feel him hard and ready for her. A shot of pleasure rushed through her body and she nipped his earlobe.

 

“Myrcella wait,” he started, but his hands were wandering all over her, and he was pressing kisses to her temple and her cheek, “We have to talk.”

 

“We don’t _have_ to do anything,” she pointed out. “But there are a great many things that we could do…,” she said and pushed him away. She smiled at him and undid the tie of her wrap-shirt and let it fall to the ground. His eyes took in her half-naked body and she had never felt more beautiful. “Take me to bed Robb Stark.”


	8. Chapter 8

“ _Robb…_ ,” she half whined half cooed.

 

“I’m busy,” he argued, his hand trailing up her stomach, his mouth on her neck, his nose in her hair.

 

She pushed him over and climbed on top of him, loving the way his eyes electrified when she did.

 

She leaned down and kissed him and his hand grabbed the back of her neck gently, the other trailing across her back. His hands felt large and possessive and they gave her greater pleasure than she’d ever known.

 

Last night had been indescribable and she had woken up in the warm cocoon of his arms with a delicious ache in her bones.

 

“I’m hungry,” she told him, “Can we go get brunch somewhere?”

 

“Myrcella if you think I’m letting you get dressed today,” Robb said, rolling them so he hovered over her, “Then you are the prettiest fool I’ve ever met.” With that he kissed down her neck, to the tops of her breasts. He grinned up at her, that roguish grin that made her absolutely blind. “ _But_ I would like you to gain some strength back. You’re going to need it. I’ll make us something.”

 

With that he kissed her once more and got out of bed. She rolled on her side and propped herself up, admiring his gorgeous body as he padded across her bedroom to retrieve his boxers.

 

He turned to her as he pulled them on and she was delighted to see him blush, “What are you looking at?”

 

She sat up, bringing the sheet with her and tucking it across her chest. She wriggled her finger at him and as though he was on a string that she could pull taut at her leisure he came back over and sat back down on the bed.

 

“Yes, Miss Baratheon?,” he asked her.

 

She wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him close, not minding at all that the sheet fell to her waist when she did. She pressed her breasts against his strong chest, relishing in the feel of his skin against hers.

 

He sighed into her mouth and kissed her back, his hands cupping her cheeks.

 

When she pulled away, she looked at him earnestly and said, “Chocolate chips.”

 

He gave her a bemused grin and kissed her neck, gripping it and tilting it back, “Is that your safe word or something?”

 

She giggled, “In my pancakes, you pervert.”

 

He chuckled against her neck and looked up and smacked a kiss to her lips.

 

“You are five years old,” he admonished her, but he kissed her again sweetly and said, “But it just so happens that I am inclined to give you each and every thing that you want today, so chocolate chips it is.”

 

With that he got up from the bed and walked out of her bedroom. When he was gone she fell back against her pillows and wiggled in excitement.

 

She felt oddly weightless, despite the fact that her limbs were like lead.

 

Flashes, brilliant flashes, of their night together swept through her mind. The cry of her name and his hands clenching hers, his lips on her back and his teeth nipping her ankle, the look of wonder in his eyes as their bodies joined for the first time.

 

She heard the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen and it snapped her out of her reverie.

 

“Robb?,” she called, getting out of bed.

 

“Myrcella stay in there!,” he ordered and she rolled her eyes.

 

She grabbed her light purple robe and wrapped it around herself, stepping into her slippers and padded out into the living room.

 

“If you think I’m going to let you burn down my apartment as a romantic gesture you have another thing coming,” she told him as she walked towards the kitchen.

 

She found Robb there, in nothing but his boxers, and would have smiled at the pile of pots and pans on the floor, if he had been alone.

 

But he wasn’t.

 

“Well, aren’t you going to ask if _I_ want any pancakes?”

 

Her eyes looked into a pair of matching green.

  
“Joffrey?”

 

***

 

The similarities in their appearance were startling.

 

They had the same slender build, the same green eyes and high cheekbones, the same curl waved through their golden hair. He remembered meeting Gendry, and knowing immediately that they were siblings, not because of any physical similarities but because of a similarity of expression, as though life were only a game and they were one of the lucky few that knew the rules.

 

Joffrey on the other hand could be Myrcella’s twin, but he shared none of her grace. While her lips were always only a half-moment away from a smile, his seemed as though they must be in a perpetual sneer.

 

His eyes had bags under them, as though he hadn’t quite recovered from his night yet, and though his clothes must have cost a fortune, they hung limply on him, as if they were made for someone else.

 

Myrcella crossed to him and Robb had to fight the urge to place his arm in front of her.

 

She placed her hands on his cheeks, “Joff, what did you take? Come sit, I’ll make you something to eat.”

 

He wrenched her wrists off of him and Robb was surprised she didn’t stumble backwards.

 

“Don’t touch me with those slut hands of yours,” he sneered at her.

 

“Joffrey!,” she admonished and now Robb did pull her behind him.

 

He realised now that it wasn’t drink he was recovering from, but something harder, harsher, that still coursed his way through his veins. He was not a large man but he looked like he could snap the life from his little sister in an instant. Robb pushed her more firmly behind him.

 

Joffrey got in his face, “You will not touch my sister in front of me!”

 

“ _You_ will never touch your sister like that again, or mark my words not even the seven could help you.”

 

They were nearly the same height, though Robb figured he had at least thirty pounds on him. Even still he looked into his eyes and saw only darkness there. It chilled him to his core.

 

A shudder ran through his body when Joffrey let out a maniacal laugh.

 

“That’s _good_ ,” Joffrey nodded, stepping back and reaching into the cabinet to grab himself a glass, “Very good. Where do you keep your vodka?”

 

“The freezer,” Myrcella told him and went in to grab it for him, “Maybe some orange juice with it?”

 

Joffrey looked at her like she was a lunatic but she was already pulling it out. He nodded and she crossed over to where he was standing and poured a splash of vodka in and then filled the glass with orange juice.

 

Joffrey leaned in, and Robb tensed, but it wasn’t aggressive, it was almost like he was leaning on her for support.

 

“Drink this,” she told him and handed him the glass, “You’ll feel better.”

 

“You smell like a wolf, sweet sister,” he admonished and she flinched away from him.

 

“Sit down and drink that,” she snapped.

 

Robb wasn’t entirely sure what to do in this situation. He knew what he wanted to do, what he would do if this was anyone other than her brother. He’d escort him out and get in a few hits for the cruelty of his words and the force of his grip on her wrists.

 

She turned to him and mouthed _sorry_ , and then stepped closer to him, “Why don’t you go shower and I’ll make us all some pancakes?”

 

That was out of the question, he wasn’t leaving her alone with him.

 

“No,” he shook his head, and rubbed her arm. He could see how tightly she was coiled. He tried to appear at ease and said, “Put me to work, gorgeous.”

 

A half smile overtook her face but she gestured to the pots and pans on the floor. He picked them up as she started pulling out ingredients.

 

He’d been planning on pulling up a recipe on his phone but she didn’t seem to need one as she started whisking things together.

 

For a moment he almost forgot that Joffrey was there, as she planted a kiss to his arm when he pulled down the chocolate chips for her.

 

“Well isn’t this _domestic_ ,” Joffrey sneered though, and they both became painfully aware that he was still in the room. “You really are a full service whore, aren’t you?”

 

He’d been ready to deck him since he’d walked into her apartment unannounced, and he could have killed him when he’d placed his hands around her slender wrists, but at this point he didn’t care if he was her brother.

 

“Take that back and then get out,” Robb growled. He thought of Arya and Sansa. “How can you even speak to your sister like that?”

 

For the first time Joffrey smiled, and it was more terrifying than anything else he had done yet.

 

“Who,” Joffrey asked, “Said that I was speaking to her?”

 

***

 

It was such a ridiculous thing to say, that Myrcella half-laughed.

 

“Gods your suppliers are really upping their game these days, aren’t they Joff?,” she asked.

 

She turned to apologise once again to Robb but his eyes were locked on Joffrey’s. She turned and found Joffrey staring back, a sick grin on his face.

 

“Myrcella why don’t you give us a minute?,” Robb asked her.

 

She looked between them and shook her head, “No. No, why don’t one of you tell me what’s going on?”

 

“Yes, Robb, why don’t you tell her what’s going on?,” Joffrey prompted.

 

Where he had previously seemed dazed, unpredictable, now he seemed to have an otherworldly calm emanating from him.

 

She wanted to look at Robb, to figure out what was going on, but that calm was dangerous.

 

“No? Nothing?,” Joffrey asked conversationally, “Alright then…”

 

“Wait!,” Robb shouted. Now she did turn to look at him and he shook his head, “Myrcella I don’t know where to begin…I-“

 

“Alright then _I’ll_ start. Myrcella, you’ve been taken for a ride in more ways than one.”

 

“Don’t be crass,” she admonished him. She was sick of his games, he had always loved games. As long as he was the referee, and winner. “Just tell me whatever you obviously came here to tell me.”

 

He smiled at her, “Well since you asked so nicely. Stark here has been using you to get information on our family. He’s been playing you from the start.”

 

She laughed at him, he really was absurd.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she turned to Robb to laugh with him but she found him staring at her already. The laughter died on her lips as she saw the truth in his eyes. She shook her head, “No.”

 

“Myrcella, wait -,” he started.

 

He moved forward to take her into his arms, which only this morning had seemed like the safest place imaginable.

 

“No!,” she stepped back from him, “Tell me he’s lying.”

 

“Go on, Stark, tell her,” Joffrey taunted.

 

“You stay out of this,” she ordered, unable to even be hurt by the obvious glee her older brother felt at the sight of her in pain. She looked at Robb, “Tell me,” he said nothing though and it couldn’t be possible, it couldn’t be real, that voice in her head, the one that had told her there was something wrong had never guessed that it could be this. She stepped forward and pushed him, “Tell me. Tell me he’s lying. Tell me you wouldn’t do this to me!”

 

Robb looked at her and he shook his head. He opened his mouth to say something, what it was she’d never know because he stopped himself.

 

Instead he said, “It wasn’t personal.”

 

Her entire world went red and before she knew it her palm was burning from the force of her slap. There was an angry, red mark on his cheek but he didn’t flinch, didn’t move, didn’t take his eyes off of her.

 

“It was personal to _me_ ,” she argued, “But you knew that - you made _damn_ _sure_ of it- and you did it anyway.”

 

“Myrcella, please, please just let me explain -,” he started.

 

“Let you? _Let you_?,” she railed at him, “Who’s been stopping you? If he hadn’t shown up here this morning when would you have told me? On our first anniversary? Maybe on our honeymoon? Or had you imagined it as some sort of death bed confession? Tell me, Robb, what was your plan?”

 

“I never intended for this to happen,” he said, “Somewhere along the way you began to-“

 

 _“She’s a means to an end. That’s all_ ,” his voice echoed and she turned towards Joffrey. He was holding up his phone and he pressed a button, “ _What’s she like?”_ Jon’s voice asked, _“She’s a Lannister,”_ Robb’s voice answered.

 

She turned back to look at Robb and found him with his eyes closed, his jaw clenched. The fact that he wouldn’t even meet her gaze filled her with the anger required to make it through this moment. She could not feel betrayed or sad or embarrassed.

 

She had never understood her mother more than she did now, standing in front of these two men whom she had loved in spite of her better judgment.

 

“Last night must have given you and Jon a real laugh,” she realised.

 

His eyes opened and he shook his head, “I have _never_ laughed at you. This was never about you at all,” he stepped forward to take her hand, “You have to believe me.”

 

“But I don’t believe you!,” she argued, “I don’t believe _anything_ you say to me.”

 

“Myrcella please -“

 

“No,” she said firmly. He had been moving to grab her again but her tone made him recoil. “No. There is nothing you could say to me that would _ever_ make me inclined to believe or forgive you - so you can take your excuses and your apologies and you can get the hell out of my house.”

 

“Not that it matters,” Joffrey started in a bored tone, “But this is an apartment.”

 

Robb launched forward to grab him and she stepped into his way. He nearly tripped over himself in his effort to stop and he looked at her in bewilderment.

 

“If you’d like to kill one another that’s perfectly fine with me but I suggest you do it outside,” she told him primly. It was getting harder and harder not to cry and she had to get out of there. “I’m going to shower, if either of you are still here when I get out I’ll call the police.”

 

With that she strode out of the room. Her steps got heavier as she neared her bedroom and she glanced at her bed. Only minutes before it had seemed like a sanctuary and now the rumpled sheets and the pillows on the floor looked like a crime scene.

 

She felt dirty, so incredibly dirty, and she went into her bathroom and turned on the shower as hot as it would go.

 

She went back into her bedroom and grabbed Robb’s clothes and chucked them into the hallway and slammed her door, not wanting him to even think of coming in to speak with her.

 

She stepped into the shower and the water scalded her skin, but she rubbed it raw anyway, desperate to eliminate any lingering trace of him. She washed her hair twice and scrubbed her skin once more for good measure. It wasn’t enough.

 

She got out and wrapped herself in a big towel. She stepped outside and found his clothes gone. She walked through her apartment and found no trace of either of them.

 

She was alone, just like she’d requested.

 

She picked up her phone. She wanted to hurl it across the room until it shattered, just so that she could destroy the text messages and photos of the two of them in it.

 

Instead she went into her contacts and scrolled through. She clicked on the one she wanted and held the phone to her ear.

 

He picked up on the first ring, “Hi honey bunny.” He hadn’t called her that since she was sixteen, since they lowered her father’s casket into the ground. Before then he hadn’t called her it since she was eight when she’d skinned her knees riding her bike. He always seemed to know. More than that, he had always cared. And she’d let him down. A sob bubbled up in her chest, “Myrcella?”, and it erupted as she fell down to the ground, “Myrcella!”

 

“Uncle Jaime - I… messed up. I’m so sorry.”

 

***

 

Robb walked out of Myrcella’s apartment building with an ache in his chest he’d never felt before.

 

It was his fault, he knew that. He should have never come up with this plan, should have never gone through with it. He should have let her go - or failing that, he should have told her ages ago. He should have walked away from her that first night when he saw that smile, that far-off smile.

 

That smile had told him everything he needed to know, that this was a girl unlike any he’d met before.

 

And that was exactly why he hadn’t. Even if he didn’t realise it then, he’d known she wouldn’t give him anything. That she’d never betray her family, that she wasn’t the kind to be swayed by a cocky grin and a compliment.

 

He’d known, he’d always known. But he couldn’t let her go and now she was suffering for his weakness.

 

He knew that there was more on the line here than just their aching hearts. That he had to tell Jon, and most likely his father what had happened. But in this moment he couldn’t find it in himself to care about the company or his family.

 

All he wanted was to run back upstairs and bang on her door and beg her to forgive him.

 

“Well I think she took that rather well,” a simpering voice cut into his thoughts.

 

He turned towards it and saw Joffrey standing there, looking horribly pleased with himself.

 

He closed the distance between them and grabbed him by the collar and shoved him against the wall of the building.

 

“You little _shit_ ,” he growled, “How could you _do_ that to her?”

 

To his immense pleasure, Joffrey looked terrified.

 

“I wouldn’t do that Stark, my guards are mere minutes away,” he grinned though, “And they’ve got ways of making bodies disappear that’d knock your socks off…”

 

It was inconceivable that he and Myrcella were related. Not only because it seemed impossible to Robb that an older brother could so obviously hate one of his siblings, let alone one like her who seemed to care for him in spite of who he was, but because they were so wildly different from one another.

 

Even Tywin, who was undeniably ruthless, did not seem to share his grandson’s immense delight in cruelty.

 

He shoved him harshly back and stepped away.

 

“She’s your little sister,” he growled at him, “You should be _protecting_ her - from people like me…”

 

“Yes, yes, _poor_ Myrcella,” Joffrey sneered, “She’s not the delicate little flower you think she is, you know. If you really knew her - you - you…”

 

Robb looked him over and stepped back. He was nothing more than a little brat with far too large a bank account.

 

There could be a thousand of him and they wouldn’t be worth one of her and it was eating him alive.

 

“You bugged my phone, so you are as aware as I am that she gave me nothing,” Robb noted.

 

Joffrey nodded dismissively, “Yes, apparently she is more eager to open her legs than her mouth, but that’s no matter, the mere fact that she didn’t realise what you were doing should be enough to cast doubt on her loyalties.”

 

So he intended to let that hatred devour her as well.

 

“It must be difficult for you,” he nodded, “Being the brother of Myrcella Baratheon. Perfection like that - you didn’t stand a chance did you? Even if you weren’t the piece of shit that you are, you never could be the favourite - not with the way your uncles, even your grandfather look at her.” Joffrey wouldn’t meet his gaze and so he went on, “Your father must have favoured her too.”

 

“My father was a drunken oaf who never had time for anyone other than his whores!,” Joffrey snarled at him. “Myrcella never saw that though, and he loved her for it.”

 

“But you did,” Robb went on, “You saw him for who he was, and he hated you for it. Didn’t he?” Joffrey met his gaze but said nothing. “Come on, you’re not stupid enough to blame her for that are you? She was a _kid_ when he died - she -“

 

“YOU DON’T KNOW HER!,” Joffrey raged, “That little bitch has had this coming for years - she’s taken _everything_ from me and now I am going to delight in taking it all from her too. After all, you may know, we Lannister’s are famous for paying our debts.”

 

Robb slammed him once again against the wall, “You don’t want to do that. Trust me. Come after me, I did this, come after me _all you want_ but I swear this by the old gods and the new if I hear one _whisper_ of her name you are a dead man.”

 

He released him and stepped away, because he was afraid that he actually would kill him in that moment. If he had to look at his hateful face that was a cruel foil of hers for a second longer he might well and truly go mad.

He went to leave but turned back for a moment and told him, “And unlike you I don’t need hired hands to do my business for me. If Myrcella suffers for this I will kill you myself.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well we all knew it would come out eventually...


	9. Chapter 9

Myrcella walked into the salon _Poof_ on Thursday afternoon, her arms full of bags.

 

The entire salon had a subtle perfume to it that delighted the senses, making you feel as though you were reclining on the coast of Qarth rather than in the bustling West Hamlet of King’s Landing.

 

Assistants came running to her to rid her arms of her bundles and she smiled at them as warmly as she was able. The expression felt false though, and foreign. It had been some days since she’d smiled for any reason other than politeness.

 

“Hi I’m Myrcella Baratheon,” she told one of them, “I have an appointment…for basically every service you offer.”

 

One of the girls smiled at her, and nodded, “Of course, Miss Baratheon. Milo’s been expecting you, he’s -“

 

“Right here,” a strikingly attractive man said with a flourish. The assistants made way for him as though he was a king or god, and he stepped forward. His eyes were the most startling shade of purple and she felt him scrutinising every inch of her. His soft hand lifted her chin and her gaze met his. “Finally - a worthy canvas.”

 

He let her go and clapped and his assistants were a buzz of activity. One handed her a glass of champagne while another unzipped the garment bag holding her gown. She hung it up on a slightly raised platform, as another opened the box that contained her shoes, and finally another proffered her mask.

 

Milo stepped forward and appraised the gown, “Such fine craftsmanship. Who is your stylist?”

 

“I don’t have one,” she told him honestly.

 

“You don’t have any jewellery?,” he asked her.

 

“Why gild the lily?,” she asked him.

 

He turned to her and smiled, “Why indeed. Would you please turn to the side?”

 

She did as she was asked, though this had to be the most bizarre experience she had ever had in a salon. He nodded at an assistant who came and lifted up her hair.

 

“Excellent posture,” he commended her, walking around her until he was facing her once again, and tsked her, “But these poor eyes of yours. Did you get no sleep at all?”

 

“None,” she admitted.

 

She hadn’t wanted to come tonight, but as it was an annual event in her grandmother’s honour, she could not miss it without attracting notice. The yearly masquerade was one of the most exclusive nights in King’s Landing, and the society pages wrote about it for weeks afterwards. More so even than the Harvest Festival in the Reach.

 

The year she’d turned fifteen had been her first year in attendance, and the theme had been _Spring Everlasting_. She’d worn a blood red gown adorned in a thousand silk roses, her face completely fresh with the exception of the barest hints of highlighter, a crown of baby’s breath tumbling through her hair.

 

The year she was nineteen had been _A Night in the Red Keep_ , and everyone had custom period costumes made. Her sleeves had reached the floor and she’d worn the tiara that had been in her family for the past three hundred years. That was the year Joffrey had brought a lion cub. He still had a scar on his right hand from where he’d been bit.

 

The point was, the stylist columnists were already speculating what she’d be wearing for this year’s event. And after everything, she owed it to her family.

 

_“What do you have to say for yourself?,” her grandfather asked her._

 

_“I won’t insult you by offering an excuse,” she told him, her head held high. “I went against my better judgment, against everything you taught me. And I’m sorry.”_

 

_She didn’t look at her Uncle Jaime, but she knew that he was there. I’ll be right by your side, he’d told her._

 

_He’d held her until the tears stopped, until she could tell him what had happened. She’d left nothing out, spared no detail. She hadn’t embellished or tried to gloss over, she hadn’t tried to paint herself in a better light._

 

_We had better go, he’d said when she finished. Go? Where? she’d wondered._

 

_I know who Joffrey is, Myrcella, he’d sighed. I’ve always known, and it was us who failed you, not the other way around. We should have protected you from him long ago, you and Tommen, but we didn’t. And now I’ll be damned if he’ll have the satisfaction of telling your grandfather this. Get dressed, honey bunny, we’ll tell him together._

 

_But Uncle Jaime, aren’t you angry with me? she asked as he went to leave her room so that she could get ready._

 

_He turned to her and smiled sadly, and then he told her, We don’t control who we love, Myrcella. None of us._

 

_“What did you tell him?,” her grandfather asked._

 

_She thought about it, it was all she had been thinking about since she’d heard. What had she said, when her guard had been down?_

 

_“That you are an awful beast when mother has you on a juice cleanse,” she admitted._

 

_She heard her Uncle Tyrion chuckle and even her grandfather pursed his lips._

 

_“I told him about Dorne,” she went on, and the mirth in the room died a sudden death. Her grandfather looked at her stoically so she went on, “Only that I rebelled and worked on the vineyard and that I dated a boy when I was down there.”_

 

_“And what of your father?,” her grandfather asked her._

 

_She thought about it, “He knows about Gendry. But I told him no more than the papers published after his death.”_

 

_“And of the company?,” he asked. She shook her head. He all but smiled and said, “So it would appear the Young Wolf wasted his time.”_

 

_“Even still,” she shook her head, “I should have known better.”_

 

_Her grandfather appraised her coolly, and in that moment he was judge, jury, and executioner._

 

_“I trust that next time you will,” he said finally._

 

To say that she had been surprised was an understatement. Her uncles too, were in a state of shock.

 

_“You look like her,” Uncle Tyrion said in the town car._

 

_“Who?,” she wondered._

 

_“Our mother,” Uncle Jaime answered._

 

They said it as though that explained everything, and she supposed in a way it did. Her grandmother Joanna was the only person who could ever make her grandfather laugh, the woman who might have saved the whole Lannister clan if she’d only survived.

 

Love, even when taken away, was too powerful a force for even Tywin Lannister.

 

_“What will he do to him?,” she wondered._

 

_“Joffrey?,” Uncle Tyrion wondered, “Not much. He’ll get a stern talking to and perhaps be sent to a rehab facility which would be more gift than punishment.”_

 

_Her Uncle Jaime knew better._

 

_“That’s your decision,” he said. “What would you like us to do with the Young Wolf?”_

 

“Well,” Milo said, as though he very much understood. He turned to look at the dress, his arms crossed, his hand in his palm, “You’ll look like an angel.”

 

“I know,” she nodded.

 

The theme was _The Seven Heavens and Hells_ after all _._

 

_“I don’t want you to do anything to him,” she told her uncles._

 

Milo turned to look at her, “Now how about an Angel of Death?”

 

She only grinned at him in response.

 

_“Leave Robb Stark to me.”_

 

***

 

It was the most elaborate party he’d ever been to.

 

She’d told him to expect as much, but even still it beggared belief. The theme was Seven Heavens and Seven Hells, which had to be blasphemous, but since he prayed to the old gods, and none of the guests amassed seemed to care, he didn’t really either.

 

“This is obnoxious,” Jon growled.

 

Robb agreed with him but he was bored of his moods. He’d been in a constant one since he’d arrived in the capital.

 

“Then leave,” he suggested. Even he wasn’t sure whether he meant the party or King’s Landing.

 

He said it with a false smile on his face though, cognisant of the photographers at the party, not to mention the guests who all seemed curious about _the wolves of Winterfell_.

 

Jon adopted a smile of his own, “We both know that I can’t. I have _strict_ instructions from your father not to let you out of my sight.”

 

Robb chuckled and nodded, “So loyal. No wonder he prefers you.”

 

“You were once too,” Jon pointed out.

 

He knew that he had fucked up. Lying to Jon had been a mistake, but it was far from his biggest one so he found it a little hard to care. Not when he could still envision the exact moment Myrcella had realised what he’d done.

 

The mirth had died in her eyes and he’d watched her harden in front of him. He had done that. He had done it by lying to her again and again. By prioritising his company over her. By not being strong enough to walk away from her.

 

Robb turned and looked him in the eye, “And what am I now?”

 

Jon stared at him for a long while before answering. He smirked and shook his head and said, “You know, for the life of me Stark, I can’t figure that out.” He moved to walk away but stopped and said in his ear, “But you’re acting like a proper Southern douchebag.”

 

Robb clenched his fist and their shoulders hit against one another as they walked away from each other. He walked towards the bar and ordered a whiskey neat and had to stop himself from ordering a dry martini along with it. He wasn’t sure when it had become natural for their orders to roll off the tongue as one, but it had.

 

It was a pretty silly thing to be upset about, all things considered, but he felt his eyes smarting all the same. They were meant to attend this together, and he couldn’t help thinking how much more enjoyable this would be with her at his side. She’d poke fun good-naturedly at all the pompous outfits, though hers he knew would be one of a kind, and would coo nonsensically in his ear just to make him laugh. As it stood he and Jon had arrived as sulky companions.

 

He looked around the party. All of Southern society was there, not just King’s Landing. Private jets had been arriving all week from the Reach and Dorne, from the Riverlands and the Stormlands.

 

As far as he knew, his parents had always garnered an invitation but had never attended. The other northern families had followed suit, centuries old loyalties playing out in the modern world.

 

He was the first Stark to attend since his grandfather, and only because he was in the south for other reasons. It was expected of him, and until recently, he had always done what was expected of him.

 

“You look out of place,” a deep voice said.

 

He turned to his left and offered, “You’re one to talk.”

 

Gendry chuckled, “Warrior?”

 

“Smith?,” Robb answered in return.

 

Gendry nodded, “Well from one god to another, my best advice is to get properly shitfaced.”

Robb held up his glass of whiskey, “On it.”

 

Gendry nodded, “Just be careful, it may be the best way to deal with all of them,” he said gesturing to the crowd, “But it will only get you a tongue lashing from Myrcella. She abhors drunkenness.”

 

Robb downed the glass and slammed it on a nearby table, “Not nearly as much as she abhors me.”

 

_“This is completely inappropriate,” she seethed. “Showing up at my work?”_

 

_“Well you wouldn’t answer my calls,” he argued, “What was I supposed to do?”_

 

_“Take the hint!”_

 

Gendry turned to him and Robb turned as well. There was anger emanating off of him but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.

 

“What did you do to her?,” Gendry asked him. _He’s the brother she deserves._ “That wasn’t a rhetorical question - answer me.”

 

_“Please,” he begged._

 

_Her voice only barely shook when she said, “No.”_

 

“I broke her heart,” Robb confessed.

 

“Outside,” Gendry ordered. Robb held up his hands, wanting to stave this off. He knew that in Gendry’s position he’d do the same thing. Worse. If a guy had hurt Arya or Sansa he wouldn’t care about the scene that he would make by punching him in the middle of a party. But even still, he had come here for a reason, he had worn this obnoxious mask/helmet for a reason. And she wasn’t here yet. “Now.”

 

“Look, Gendry -,” he started.

 

“I’m not going to ask you again,” Gendry growled.

 

Robb sighed and turned to leave but a hush fell over the crowd. He’d seen it happen in movies, and it always felt contrived, forced, when everyone turned to stare at mysterious beauty.

 

But none of those girls were Myrcella Baratheon.

 

At first glance she looked as ethereal as a woodland sprite, as alluring as a siren. Her gown was the palest pink, a mix of silk and lace with some sort of beading that caught the light though was almost undetectable to the naked eye. What little skin was revealed was luminous, her golden hair pulled back to reveal her aristocratic neck. Her mask was of the same material and sprouted out like fans on either side of her face, making her appear as though she had a halo surrounding her.

 

She was an angel.

 

An angel of destruction, of retribution, there was no mercy to be found in her stunning face.

 

Her jadeite eyes were lined in kohl, her high cheekbones as sharp as a razor’s edge, but her lips. Her kissable, soft lips that were always half a moment away from a smile, were painted a deep, unforgiving black.

 

“By the gods,” he swore to himself as she descended the last bit of the staircase on her Uncle’s arm.

 

Gendry chuckled, “On second thought, stick around Stark. Something tells me she’d like to take care of this herself.”

 

***

 

“Thank you,” Uncle Jaime said, “For coming. I know you didn’t want to.”

 

“ _The house that puts family first will always defeat the house that puts the whims and wishes of its sons and daughters first,”_ she intoned.

 

He chuckled, “Your impression of my father is getting scarily good.”

 

She nudged against his shoulder, “Thank you, Uncle Jaime.” He looked down at her, knowing she wasn’t thanking him for that statement. “For being my escort tonight. I don’t think I could have bore doing it alone.”

 

He looked at her grimly and said, “You could have actually. I don’t think there is a single thing in this world you can’t do. But while I live,” he promised, “You’ll never have to do them alone.”

 

She felt tears prick her eyes and she banished them, so instead she smiled and let out a laugh, it was a pained one but it was a laugh, “You know Uncle Jaime, I’m not sure that I deserve you.”

 

“You don’t,” he deadpanned once again, and held up her hand and pressed a kiss to the back of it, “But you have me all the same.”

 

She grinned and he lead her out into a waltz. No one else was dancing, but they didn’t care. In fact, she was pretty sure that her uncle preferred it that way.

 

She followed his steps easily and when he did the lifts she felt no older than six, when they’d all taken a family vacation to the Summer Isles. Their villa had a pool and Jaime and her father spent hours in itwith her and Tommen, even Joffrey. They tossed them up into the air and made whirlpools. It was the only time she’d ever seen them get along.

 

“He’s here,” he said in her ear and she forced herself to keep a smile on her face.

 

“What is he dressed as?,” she wondered, refusing to give into searching the room for his form.

 

“The Warrior,” Uncle Jaime balked.

 

She grimaced, that would suit him well. Her Uncle Jaime had chosen well, too, as the Lion of Night, the Yi Ti God.

 

If pressed, she would say that she was the Moon-Pale Maiden, the favoured goddess of sailors, but in truth she preferred Milo’s declaration.

 

“Well, if it’s battle he wants,” she offered, as though nothing really mattered.

 

As the dance ended her Uncle Jaime pulled her close, “Remember what your mother always says…”

 

“The gods have no mercy,” she recited as if by rote and pressed a kiss to his cheek.

 

The next song struck up and now that she and her uncle had broken the spell, couples took to the dance floor. Though later in the night when the eldest generation had left a dj would be brought out, for now it was a string quartet, the dances formal. Everyone invited would have taken lessons as children, training for parties such as this, cotillions, weddings.

 

Traditions died a slow death in the South.

 

She took a glass of champagne that a passing waiter offered to her and sipped it. It crackled on her tongue and she surveyed the room.

 

People had outdone themselves this year, the gowns were particularly spectacular, and she waved to a few people, though no one she had any interest in speaking with.

 

She saw Gendry, dressed as the Smith, across the dance floor and set her champagne down on a table and went to cross towards him. He only came to these things for her and to keep up appearances, as was part of the arrangement with her grandfather, and they’d both enjoy themselves more at the other’s side.

 

She nearly collided into a perfectly tailored tuxedo and she looked up to find Robb Stark there, his eyes sparkling looking down at her.

 

“May I have this dance?,” he asked, already taking her hand.

 

“No,” she said, pushing him off of her.

 

“Careful, Myrcella,” he warned in her ear. She hated the way she felt goosebumps rise on her arms at his proximity and the gravel of his tone. “The paparazzi are all over this party. You don’t want to make a scene.”

 

“ _You_ don’t want to make a scene,” she corrected.

 

“Ah well,” he sighed, and she wasn’t sure how but they were already on the dance floor. He was so smooth it was impossible to keep up with him. That was how she was in this mess in the first place. “You could go tell them everything. I’ll come off as an asshole, no doubt about that, but you? They’ll name you a fool, and I know that you don’t want that.”

 

She glared at him, “Are you blackmailing me?”

 

“I really wouldn’t look at it that way,” he shrugged, “It’s more like we have a mutual interest, and whether you’d like to admit it or not, you know that I’m right.”

 

“You are unbelievable,” she shook her head, refusing to look at him, “After everything you’ve done you have the _audacity_ to -“

 

“Careful now,” he chided, spinning her and pulling her back to him with such forceful grace that flashes of their night together, of him pinning her to the bed sparked in her mind. As did the way he held her hand to his chest, his mouth at her ear, “Or that Baratheon temper will make you say something you regret.”

 

“I thought it was the Lannister side you were interested in,” she said in his, making sure that her dress covered them when she dug her stiletto into his foot.

 

He let out a pained chuckle and shook his head, “I was interested in _every_ part of you.”

 

The dance pulled them apart slightly, custom dictating she look him in the eyes as they turned in a circle, so she was forced to see the false sincerity in them.

 

“I must have been such a disappointment to you,” she guessed.

 

“You were,” he nodded, and though she had been determined not to let him hurt her further she couldn’t deny that it stung. He lifted her arms above her head and brought her closer, “Everything about you was cause for disappointment. I wanted to find a shallow, vapid girl, who could be swayed by a compliment into divulging useful information,” he let her arms down and they turned in a circle once again. They fell back into the waltz and he went, “And instead, I found a warm, clever girl who challenged me on _everything_. Who would never be swayed by something as simple as a compliment, and who could never be convinced by anything to betray her family. I found a girl who made me question the very essence of who I am, who made me laugh, who made me doubt, who made me covet,” she was grateful when the danced demanded that she moved to the next partner. She fell into step with Harry Hardyng, a welcome respite, but all too soon she landed back in Robb’s arms. “You have been my life’s greatest disappointment, Myrcella Baratheon.”

 

“Then surely you’ll have no trouble in letting me go,” she urged, desperate to get away from him. He was too much, he had always been too much.

 

“On the contrary,” he argued, his grip tightening on her hand as he spun her in consecutive circles, “I’m finding it impossible.”

 

“You hardly know me,” she spat.

 

He leaned in and said in her ear, “I know that you have a pair of fuzzy slippers by your door to put on the moment you walk inside. And that you’ll sit around for a little while in your gown because you’re not ready to say goodbye to the evening. I know that on Saturday morning you’ll go pick up flowers and croissants and bring one back for Sid.”

 

“Those are mere facts,” she pointed out, “You seem to be mistaking reconnaissance for romance.”

 

“And you seem to be mistaking an error in judgment for a fault of character,” he growled in her ear. “Perhaps you are merely a Lannister after all.”

 

“Go to _hell_ ,” she seethed at him.

 

She pushed him as subtly as she could and started walking towards the exit. She was almost off the dance floor when she felt someone tug her hand.

 

She whirled around and as though he’d choreographed it, Jon pulled her back into the waltz.

 

“Myrcella,” he started.

 

He was dressed as the Stranger. It suited him.

 

“Jon,” she frowned back at him, “Let me go.”

 

“Now if I let you leave, who would the fashion columnists write about?”

 

She scoffed, “You know I’ve always heard you were broody. Perhaps you should stick to what you’re good at. Jokes aren’t really your thing.”

 

He grinned at her, “You didn’t seem to feel that way the other night.”

 

“I thought I was meeting my boyfriend’s best friend. I didn’t realise I was meeting his co-conspirator,” she told him, as he spun her, “I was being polite.”

 

He dipped her backwards, a small smile on his lips, “You’re lying.”

 

She looked him dead in the eye and said, “Then I’m in good company.”

 

He pulled her back up and spun her once more, leading her once again into the steps of the waltz.

 

He was better at this then she might have expected. He was as practiced in the dances as any southern playboy, but had a body made for movement and an easy grace that made the tired steps feel unpredictable.

 

“Laugh,” his low voice commanded in her ear.

 

“Excuse me?,” she challenged.

 

“Laugh,” he repeated through a gritted teeth smile, “He’s watching.”

 

“And what makes you think that matters to me?,” she evaded.

 

He lifted her hands above her head and brought her close, forcing her to look up at him as his gaze bore into hers, “Because you showed up looking like that.”

 

“Compliments will get you nowhere,” she warned him. “And besides, that proves nothing. Perhaps I’m just vain.”

 

He chuckled, and shook his head, “Come now, Myrcella, we both know that’s not true. I saw you dance with him. So you can evade and dismiss, you can even stomp on my foot as you stomped on his - nice one by the way - but you can’t hide the truth. Not from me.”

 

She laughed harshly, “Are all Northerners this sure of themselves?”

 

“Robb and I are not the same,” he growled, and spun her out, making her dress fan all around her. That wasn’t a part of the dance.

 

When he spun her back she narrowed her eyes at him, “What game are you playing, Snow?”

 

“I don’t play games” he said.

 

“Come now, Jon, we both know that’s not true,” she whispered, her lips close to his.

 

She didn’t miss the way his eyes trailed down to them and she spun out again. He dragged her back to him and stalked forward in the dance, and she saw him glance behind her. She didn’t need to see to know who he was looking at. This time when his gaze met hers again she really did smile.

 

“You’re angry at him,” she realised, “Why?”

 

Jon swallowed hard and averted her gaze.

 

“He lied to me,” he said.

 

“A habit of his then,” she said with a courtier’s smile.

 

“No-,” Jon started and then snapped his mouth shut. He closed his eyes and when he opened them, she nearly flinched away from him. “He never has before.”

 

“That you know of,” she scoffed.

 

“Myrcella, don’t you understand? He _lied_. To me. About you. He told me he broke up with you because he wasn’t getting any information and he kept seeing you anyway.”

 

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she monotoned.

 

He chuckled, but his eyes were ablaze, “You really are a brat.”

 

“And you really are a brute,” she cooed, her eyes wandering over the planes of his handsome face, delighting in finally having the upper hand with one of them.

 

“What are you doing?,” he questioned, his grey eyes scanning over her features.

 

“Flirting with you,” she smiled.

 

“Why?”

 

“You flirted with me first,” she pointed out. He bowed his head in acknowledgment of that truth, so she pressed on, “And you really do look awfully good in a tuxedo.”

 

She let her hand trail across his shoulder towards his lapel, and took the end of his bowtie in between her fingers. She leaned closer and said in his ear, “For a brute anyway,” and tugged the end of the tie until it came undone.

 

She took advantage of his surprise and started to walk away.

 

“Myrcella, I need that,” he called after her.

 

She turned around and gave him the smile, the one that had never failed her, not until Robb anyway.

 

“Then come and get it, Jon.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'd love to know what you all think!


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> so clearly I have a problem...

 

The air felt cool on her skin and she gulped in greedy bursts of it. The paparazzi had thankfully dispersed, those of whom were allowed in were asking for pictures inside while the rest wouldn’t come back until the end of the evening when they could be sure to snap a few shots of one socialite or another stumbling.

 

She closed her eyes and focused on the sounds of the city to dull the relentless voices in her head.

 

“There you are,” a deep voice said.

 

She turned to her right and smiled.

 

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” she told him.

 

“Yes,” he corrected, “You were.”

 

He was right, she had been sure. She hadn’t doubted him for a moment.

 

“The car is right there,” she gestured to the town car parked on the curb, “Feel free to get in.”

 

He gave her a look like he wanted to say something more, but he merely nodded and got into the car and shut the door.

 

She took another deep breath and closed her eyes.

 

“Myrcella,” a husky Northern voice breathed out.

 

She fought the urge to smile as she opened her eyes.

 

“Jon,” she cooed and then held up his tie, “Looking for something?”

 

She let it dangle and like a dog he stalked forward to snatch it from her. She mock pouted at him as he wrapped it back around his neck in annoyance. He started trying to tie it but his fingers didn’t seem to want to work.

 

She stepped forward and brushed his hands away and started to tie it. She felt his gaze on her and she looked up at him and raised her eyebrow. His pupils dilated and she bit her lip to keep from smiling.

 

“There,” she said when she’d finished, “Good as new.”

 

“Thank you,” he said, “Now will you come back inside?”

 

She smiled at him flirtatiously and shook her head, “No. No Jon I don’t think I’ll be going back inside.”

 

She had done her duty, taking part in the first dance of the evening. She had smiled for the paparazzi and waved to enough people. She had no reason to go back inside and one very good reason not to.

 

“It won’t be nearly as fun without you,” he sighed.

 

She shrugged as though it didn’t much matter, “Then maybe you shouldn’t go back in.”

 

“Now _what_ would I do instead?,” he wondered.

 

“I don’t know,” she grinned, and then leaned in as though she might kiss him. Her lips only grazed his cheek as she whispered in his ear, “My car’s waiting.”

 

With that she turned and walked towards her car. She opened the door and felt him behind her.

 

She turned around and asked, “What are you doing?”

 

His eyes went wide, “I thought…”

 

“You thought what?,” she questioned, “That I would knowingly sleep with someone who had conspired against my family?”

 

“Myrcella I -,” he started.

 

“You what?,” she interrupted, “You think just because you weren’t the one taking me out for dinners that you are somehow _less_ culpable? You came into my home, you drank my liquor and ate my food, you played me the same way that he played me and then…,” she broke off trying to stop her tears.

 

“And then what?,” he asked softly, like he already knew.

 

“You let him sleep with me,” she managed, “And you _knew_ , you _saw_ what I felt for him and you didn’t do anything to stop it. So you can flirt with me all you want, you can give me that Northern grin of yours and pretend like you’re on my side of things but to me you will _always_ be the man who could have tempered my broken heart and sat back and did _nothing_.”

 

“What should I have done?,” he argued, “Tell me, how should I have done differently? Did you want me to announce it over a cheese plate or drag him out of there kicking and screaming? Look I _know_ that I’m not blameless here, and I am sorrier for your broken heart then you could ever know, but it wasn’t just _you_ I was watching being in love that night.”

 

It felt like he’d struck her and she flinched as flashes of that night went before her eyes. Robb’s hand stroking her hair gently as he refilled her wine, the laughter in his eyes when she told them about the time she and Tommen had pretended to be the Ghosts of Casterly Rock, the look on Jon’s face when Robb draped a blanket over her.

 

“So tell me,” he pressed on, “Does rejecting me make that broken heart of yours feel better? Does it feel good to dole out your punishment?”

 

“You think my rejection was your punishment?,” she questioned.

 

“What else?,” he asked.

 

“You’re loyal, Jon,” she nodded, “Everyone says so. Loyal, and noble, honourable even. Or you were, anyway. But where was the nobility in using me because you could not best my family? Where was the honour in manipulating my _heart_ for a _business deal_?” He gulped, his eyes wide, and she relished in finally being the predator, aching to sink her teeth into something, so she went in for the kill. “Where was your loyalty, just now?”

 

“What?,” he questioned.

 

“To Robb,” she explained and it was almost painful watching the understanding wash over him. “You two are infamous, the _wolves of Winterfell_ , allies, best friends… brothers even. The _unshakeable_ bond,” she laughed harshly, “It took nothing more than the flutter of my eyelashes to rattle it. You would have slept with me, knowing what you know, having seen what you supposedly saw that night. So no, Jon, your punishment is not _my_ rejection, it is the knowledge that _you_ have rejected all the things that you hold dear. My heart may be broken, but at least I know who I am.”

 

She gave him one last look and moved to get in the car.

 

“A Lannister,” he said and she turned back, “Robb had it right when he first met you.” He looked over her and almost smiled, “You are a Lannister through and through.”

 

“Forget it again at your peril,” she warned and slid into the car and slammed the door.

 

The car pulled away from the curb and she closed her eyes.

 

“How much did you hear?,” she asked.

 

“Everything,” Gendry sighed.

 

She covered her mouth and let out a sob. She felt sick to her stomach and weak as the sob racked her body.

 

“He’s wrong, you know,” he said when her sobs quieted. “You’re not all Lannister. You may have your mother’s look, Tyrion’s wit, Jaime’s loyalty, Tywin’s mind… but you have something that none of them have. A heart. They may have had them once, but not anymore - but you - this feeling you have right now - _hold onto it_ , little doe. It’s what makes you who you are. Someone worth more than the whole bloody lot of them.”

 

She turned to him and gave him a teary smile, “You sound like Dad.”

 

He shook his head, “No. If I sounded like Dad I’d tell you that Jon Snow has shit for brains.”

 

She giggled and nodded at the truth of that. But then she thought of his hurt expression and another sob bubbled up inside of her.

 

Gendry pulled her into his arms and then swore, “Mother _fucker_.”

 

“What?,” she asked in horror.

 

“This stupid fucking headdress,” he practically shrieked and she jumped back.

 

He had an indentation on his cheek but it wasn’t bleeding and he looked so put out about the whole thing that she couldn’t help but laugh.

 

“Gendry Waters, _death by couture,_ ” she joked and he chuckled.

 

She pulled off the mask and she hadn’t realised the headache it had been giving her until she removed it. She sighed and shook her head.

 

Gendry knocked on the divider and it slid open, “Can you take us to The Forge, Arys?”

 

“Gendry look at me,” she protested. She was sure that pulling off her mask had caused some of her hair to come loose and she knew that she’d have mascara dripping down her cheeks. “I know The Forge welcomes all kinds, but I can’t go in there…”

 

“You’re in desperate need of a burger, little one,” he told her stubbornly, and shrugged, “You can sneak in the back. The perk of knowing me.”

 

Myrcella smiled, thinking of when he’d first shown her plans for the bar. He’d be using some of the money their father had left him and she’d been the first person he’d spoken to about it.

 

_“It looks great, Gendry,” she told him honestly, “But I’m only seventeen, I don’t even go to bars, let alone know anything about running them. Why did you want to show me?”_

 

_“Because I want you to be a partial owner,” he told her. He scratched his head and looked at her bashfully, “Look I know you have your own portion of the inheritance, not to mention whatever countries you own through the Lannister’s. But this way I’ll know that if all that goes away somehow, at least we’ll have this. It won’t pay for the lifestyle you’ve grown up in, but this way if… something happens… again… you won’t be at their mercy. You’ll have this, me.”_

 

_“Why would you do this?,” she wondered._

 

_“Because you’re my sister,” he said, like it was obvious._

 

He was everything Joffrey wasn’t. Good, strong, loyal. He had always looked after her, and he always would.

 

“One of them, anyway.”

 

***

 

He wasn’t sure exactly how long he’d stood outside of his hotel, but he knew it had been hours.

 

He had considered going over to her apartment. Sid would let him up, unless she’d warned him not to. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to break the door down or bring flowers to it, but he wanted to be there all the same.

 

He’d seen them dance, the air between them crackling with electricity. She had seemed nearly as angry at Jon as she was at him, but there was a heat there of a different kind as well. He had watched him being taken in by her. He couldn’t blame him for that, it was impossible not to be.

 

But following her out of the ballroom, that he could blame him for.

 

Jon had hesitated, but barely, shaking his head before following her out, as though denying the act at the very moment he committed it.

 

He had left the party on Jon’s heels and come outside to find them talking in close proximity. He could hear the flirtatious lilt in Myrcella’s tone, saw the way Jon leaned towards her as though he couldn’t stop himself.

 

He’d turned away when he saw Myrcella move to kiss him. It was clear by then that Jon wouldn’t push her away and though he wanted nothing more than to throttle him, he couldn’t trust himself to look at her.

 

It was only fair that she broke his heart, but he now understood why she couldn’t bear to look at him. He felt like if he looked her in the eye his heart may give out.

 

So he walked away, all the way back to his hotel. And then he waited. Because though he couldn’t bear to see her, he would look Jon in the eye and ask him why.

 

His anger grew with every passing moment, his imaginings growing worse and worse. He thought of her lovely body beneath Jon’s, wondered if her breath hitched when he entered her the way it had when he did. He wondered if she cradled him in her limbs, if she stroked his hair as he laid it upon her breast. He wondered if she came for him, if she fell apart on his fingers and his tongue and his cock the way she had with him.

 

He was going to be sick, he was sure of it. Failing that he would go insane.

 

It had been hours. Hours of them together. Perhaps he wouldn’t come home at all. Robb knew better than anyone that when Myrcella Baratheon let you into her bed, leaving it was the last thing on your mind.

 

But before the sun had risen Jon strolled up. His hair was dishevelled, his tie askew, his eyes tired. Tears stubbornly filled Robb’s eyes.

 

“Where have you been?!,” he growled at him.

 

Jon stopped short and clenched his jaw, “Now’s not the time, Robb.”

 

“Not the -,” Robb started as Jon went to move past him. He grabbed him, “Not the time!?”

 

His breath stank of whiskey and his eyes were slightly bleary but there was a whisper of jasmine on him too.

 

He pushed him away angrily and asked, “Did you sleep with her?”

 

“Who?,” Jon challenged him. “This certainly couldn’t be about Myrcella Baratheon could it? Because the last I heard, she was just a means to an end. A tool. Now if I’m _wrong_ I apologise, but from everything you’ve said about her, I can’t really imagine you’d care.”

 

“Did you FUCK HER?,” he growled.

 

Jon looked him dead in the eye and half-smirked, “Technically I think she fucked me.”

 

It felt good to hit him.

 

He swung hard and struck true, his fist connecting with Jon’s jaw. But Jon had been his sparring partner since they were kids, and he was never an easy fight. Jon righted himself and swung his fist into his face.

 

For a moment, Robb wasn’t entirely sure of anything except the feel of their fists connecting with the other’s body. Robb knew he’d have a black eye forming and Jon spit out blood.

 

He looked at him, his teeth stained red and taunted, “Go on. Hit me again, see if it makes you feel better. See if it erases what you did to her.”

 

“So you’re her defender now?,” Robb questioned, “You’ve changed your tune. She really is a marvellous fuck, huh?”

 

Jon chuckled and shook his head, “You stubborn piece of shit.”

 

“Excuse me?,” Robb questioned, rearing up to hit him again.

 

“You fucking love her!,” Jon shouted at him, “Just _admit_ it!”

 

“Why should I?,” Robb growled, “So that you can relish in the knowledge that you had what was well and truly mine? That’s what you’ve always wanted isn’t it?”

 

“Watch it,” Jon growled back. “And _no_ , it’s so that I might _forgive_ you for what you did.”

 

“For what _I_ did? How can you even say that? You fuck the girl I love and you think that I need _your_ forgiveness, for _what_? For lying? Get over it.”

 

Jon stalked forward and grabbed him by the collar, his face contorted in rage.

 

“Not for lying you arrogant prick,” he growled, “For throwing away _everything_. Everything that we’ve worked for. Everything that we’ve built. You’ve been handed a kingdom on a silver fucking platter and you threw it all away for some girl. For the love of the gods Robb - you have _everything_ , everything I’ve ever wanted and -,” he broke off, his enraged charcoal eyes meeting his.

 

Robb looked at him and shook his head, “You didn’t sleep with her.”

 

“What?,” Jon asked, flinching away from him.

 

“You didn’t,” Robb realised, “There’s no way you could look me in the eye if you did.”

 

“You don’t know that,” Jon growled.

 

“Yeah,” he nodded, “I do. Because in spite of the fact that I’ve been a real piece of shit, you’d never betray me. That’s the reason you’re so angry, isn’t it? Because you think what I did means that I don’t care about the company, our family in the same way you do. And you hate that what you’ve earned is mine by right. You’ve always hated it.”

 

“I’ve never hated you,” Jon told him. But it sounded incomplete.

 

“Until now?,” he guessed.

 

Jon shook his head and said finally, “Even now.”

 

“I’m sorry,” he told him honestly. It felt good to say it.

 

Jon grimaced, and rubbed his jaw, “Don’t say that too quick. You should know that it wasn’t me who stopped it, it was her.”

 

Robb felt rage burning all over again but he grimaced, “How far did it go?”

 

Jon chuckled, “I didn’t even make it inside the car. She never wanted me, she just wanted me to know that I would do it.”

 

“Tywin fucking Lannister’s granddaughter,” Robb shook his head, half enraged, half impressed.

 

“She is at that,” Jon nodded.

 

“But I still love the girl,” he admitted.

 

It was the first time since he’d travelled south that Jon had looked at him the way he used to.

 

“Good,” he nodded, “Now what are we going to do about it?”

 

 


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> if you don't like this chapter, blame sansaclarkes. 
> 
> if you do like this chapter, blame sansaclarkes.

 

“You sure about this?,” Jon asked.

 

Robb clenched his jaw and shook his head, “No.”

 

He couldn’t say that he was entirely sure about anything at the moment. He wasn’t convinced that he wanted to be.

 

He had been so assured when it came to this deal, when it came to Myrcella. He hadn’t stopped to consider anything because of that surety. Not her feelings, or his own, not what would happen if she gave him nothing and found out anyway.

 

In his opinion, he could do with a little doubt.

 

_“Now boarding all First Class Passengers”_

 

“That’s us,” Jon pointed out and stood up.

 

Robb followed suit, grabbing the small bag that had his laptop and book in it. He looked around the terminal. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was looking for, but it was one of the last glimpses of King’s Landing he’d ever have.

 

“Ready?,” Jon asked him.

 

There was nothing left for him here anyway.

 

“Let’s go home, brother,” he nodded, slapping him on the back and moving towards the counter.

 

They showed their tickets to the desk attendants who waved them through and got settled in their seats. A pretty flight attendant offered them something to drink before take-off and Jon ordered a glass of whiskey but Robb shook his head.

 

“He’ll have one,” Jon told her, with the grin he was always able to turn on when he wanted to.

 

The flight attendant blushed and Robb rolled his eyes. She left to go fix their drinks and he pulled out his phone.

 

He went into his voicemail and pressed play on an old message.

 

_“Hi handsome, I was just thinking about tonight. Not sure if you’re interested but my family has pretty good seats to the hockey game? I don’t know a lick about it but I figure I owe you after the ballet last week. Unless you want me to make it up to you some other way *giggles* Anyway, let me know…. I can’t wait to see you. I know I’m not supposed to admit that so early on but…I never was one much for rules.”_

 

The flight attendant came back with their drinks and he picked his up with a shaky hand. He felt it fall down his throat and the burn of it calmed him.

 

“Did you try calling her?,” Jon asked.

 

“She uh…,” Robb let out a pained chuckle, “She blocked me. Her doormen know who I am. She…”

 

“She what?,” Jon asked warily.

 

Robb rubbed his jaw, “She hasn’t been at work. Jaime told me she isn’t in the city at all.”

 

“Surprised you got that out of him,” Jon sighed.

 

Robb swallowed his bile, “He wasn’t exactly telling me out of the goodness of his heart.”

 

**_One day earlier…_ **

 

_Robb found himself once again in the executive conference room of Lannister Corp._

 

_Jon hadn’t wanted him to come alone, but he’d insisted. It was to be their final negotiation and he was going to end it the way he’d started it._

 

_Besides, he wanted Jon as far away from Lannister ire as possible._

 

_“I don’t think that will be possible,” Jaime shook his head._

 

_“Really,” Robb challenged with a grin, “Because you thought it would be quite possible last week.”_

 

_Jaime shrugged and gave him a false grin of his own, “Yes well, it’s amazing what a bit of new information can do. Put’s everything in perspective, really.”_

 

_Robb clenched his jaw and looked towards Tywin, who fixed him with a cool expression._

 

_“Look, you should know that whatever Joffrey told you isn’t the whole story,” he started, “Myrcella did nothing wrong. You can’t believe anything he says, he’s determined to ruin her.”_

 

_“Well you were awfully helpful to him then,” Jaime seethed, “Weren’t you?”_

 

_Robb found he could not meet his gaze. He had only heard that tone of voice once, when a friend of his parents had hit on Sansa. His father had reacted just like that._

 

_It was the voice fathers reserved for monsters that threatened their little girls._

 

_“Please just believe me when I say that -“_

 

_“We don’t have to take your word for it,” Tywin interrupted. He glanced up at him and he found him looking smug, “Do you really think that my granddaughter would fail to report this as soon as she was made aware of it?”_

 

_Robb hadn’t really thought about it, but he should have. Myrcella arriving on Jaime’s arm the other night had seemed curious to him, but he realised then that it wasn’t curious at all._

 

_It had been a message, not to him but to Joffrey._

 

_For the first time in days Robb smiled genuinely. The idea of Joffrey’s face when Myrcella showed up, glorious and vicious in equal measure on the arm of the Lannister heir, him standing tall and proud and devoted beside her. Though everyone had been dressed as them, it was only Jaime and Myrcella that had well and truly looked like deities. Beautiful, powerful, merciless._

 

_Robb fought the urge to laugh._

 

_“No,” he shook his head, “There is no world in which Myrcella would fail to tell you.”_

 

_“Don’t say that like you know her,” Jaime balked at him. “Like you care for her.”_

 

_Robb looked him dead in the eyes, “You must think I’m a fool indeed if you imagine I am capable of spending that much time with her without growing to care for her.”_

 

_“Shame you two didn’t work it out then,” Jaime noted snidely._

 

_“We’re young,” Robb shrugged, playing at a nonchalance he did not feel, “There’s still time. In fact, I’d really like to wrap it up here so that I can go and see her before I head north.”_

 

_“That,” Jaime smiled, “Will be rather difficult. You see, she isn’t in King’s Landing at all.”_

 

_Robb’s jaw clenched, “Where is she?”_

 

_“And why do you suppose we’d tell you that?,” Tywin asked him._

 

_Robb looked between them. Tywin was staring straight at him with a cool resolve but Jaime didn’t quite meet his gaze._

 

_“You don’t know where she is, do you?,” he asked them. Neither answered. Though he knew that he was in the wrong he could not help but relish having the upper hand. He offered casually, “Have you checked Dorne?”_

 

_“You arrogant child, if you even -“ Jaime started._

 

_“Enough,” Tywin cut in._

 

_Just in time too because both he and Jaime had risen._

 

_Robb looked at Jaime and shook his head, “I don’t understand. Why am I not in a body bag right now?”_

 

_Jaime looked him dead in the eye and said, “If it were up to me, you would be.”_

 

_Robb looked between him and Tywin and chuckled, “Pardon me, but if my life is dependent on his-,” he said pointing at Tywin, “Mercy, I’d prefer you just end it right now.”_

 

_“Not mine,” Tywin told him._

 

_“Hers?,” Robb breathed out._

 

_Their silence told him everything he needed to know. He felt tears spring to his eyes._

 

_Hope was a brilliant, painful thing._

 

_“She inherited that mercy from her grandmother,” Tywin told him, “And as such I will not rid her of it. But know this, Stark, everything else she got, she got from me. So if you want forgiveness, I’d look to your gods, you’ll get none from her.”_

 

Jon shook his head, “All this over a single girl.”

 

“She’s quite a girl,” Robb managed to get out.

 

Jon held up his glass of whiskey and said, “To Myrcella Baratheon, who makes lions and wolves alike crumble at her feet.”

 

Robb clinked his glass against his and looked out the window. King’s Landing looked so small from up here, safe, beautiful even. He glanced at it once more and then pulled the shade down and leaned his head back against the seat.

 

He was going home.

 

***

 

 **_Meanwhile_ ** _…_

 

“How about The Avengers?,” Rickon suggested.

 

“No we’ve seen that a million times,” Sansa argued.

 

“Well… if you _don’t_ want to watch it, you could always watch the tv in your apartment downtown…,” Rickon noted.

 

Arya chucked a pillow at his face and Rickon chuckled.

 

“Arya stop moving, you’re messing me up!,” Sansa chided.

 

Arya looked down at her feet where Sansa was very carefully applying navy blue nail polish. She wasn’t entirely concerned with whether her toes looked perfectly polished, but she knew that Sansa was.

 

“Sorry,” she grumbled.

 

If they had been a few years younger, she never would have let her do this. Something had changed though in their relationship and now they shared a flat downtown, where Sansa had a job as a designer and Arya was finishing up her last year of Uni.

 

The sisters had come home for the weekend, because Arya had exams to study for and Sansa’s friends were busy. Coming home to Winterfell made them all regress into their childhood personas, even Robb, but Arya didn’t miss fighting with Sansa all the time.

 

Bran rolled into the great room in his wheelchair and announced, “Robb’s coming home.”

 

“Really?!,” Sansa asked giddily, “Is um… Jon coming with him?”

 

Arya, Bran and Rickon all turned to look at her in tandem and she blushed. They all knew about her longtime crush on Robb’s brooding best friend and Dad’s protégée.

 

Bran took mercy on her and nodded, “Yep. They’re getting here in about an hour.”

 

There was something in his tone that sparked the interest of all of his siblings.

 

“What is it?,” Arya asked.

 

Bran shook his head and said, “I don’t know. It was just something in Dad’s tone,” and looked at Rickon who nodded. They’d been around for the past month while Robb had been gone, they’d heard some of the closed door arguments between Jon and their Dad. The girls hadn’t. “I want to know what he’s been up to down south.”

 

“Well you can ask him yourself in an hour,” Sansa reasoned.

 

Though they all loved him and looked up to him, Sansa was by far the most devoted to their big brother.

 

“Or…,” Bran started and wheeled himself over to grab his laptop off the coffee table.

 

Rickon, who was enormous for his fifteen years, picked Bran up out of his wheelchair and settled him on the couch. Bran opened his laptop and they all crowded in.

 

They watched as he started tapping out what to all of them looked like hieroglyphics, but they all recognised the picture of Robb he entered in.

 

“Bran…,” Sansa started, “What are you doing?”

 

“He’s having a visssssssssion,” Arya said in a faux-spooky voice.

 

Rickon started waving his arms over the computer as though he was a priestess and shouted, “Behold, the all-knowing _Three Eyed Ravennnnn._ ”

 

Bran shook his head, regretting telling them all his username, and pointed out, “The _internet_ is all-knowing. I am but a conduit.”

 

Just like that, video upon video started populating the screen. The internet was truly a terrifying place, because it appeared as though everywhere in the last month that Robb had been was now showing up.

 

“Guys I don’t feel good about this,” Sansa argued.

 

“Arya,” Rickon ordered.

 

“On it!,” she said and sprung up from the couch and disappeared. When she came back she was carrying a bottle of whiskey and a bottle of vodka. She handed the vodka to Sansa and said, “Here, this usually knocks the qualms right out of you.”

 

Sansa sighed and shook her head, but spotted a video still of Robb hand and hand with a beautiful girl, “Oooh who’s that?,” she wondered as she unscrewed the bottle and took a swig.

 

“That’s my girl,” Arya grinned proudly, hopping back on the couch and looking over her shoulder.

 

Bran pressed play on the video.

 

_“You did not!,” the girl squealed._

 

_“I did… I really really did,” Robb nodded with a grin._

 

_“Pure evil,” she shook her head demurely._

 

_Robb pulled her to him, his arm wrapped around her waist, his other hand under her chin, “You like me anyway.”_

 

_“And what does that say about me?,” she wondered._

 

 _“Nothing good,” he teased her, and then he stared at her a long while and said, “But that’s okay, because I like_ you _anyway.”_

 

“We definitely shouldn’t be watching this,” Sansa shook her head, and took a swig of vodka and pointed, “Click on that one.”

 

Bran grinned to himself and clicked on another video. Robb and the same girl were all dressed up, standing outside of some large building.

 

_“We don’t have to go back in,” she told him._

 

_“Myrcella, I don’t mind,” he grinned, “It’s giving me a good chance to catch up on my sleep.”_

 

_She let out a deep chuckle that seemed at odds with her delicate form and shook her head, “You are full of it. I think you might actually like it.”_

 

_“No,” Robb growled, grabbing her and then dipping her dramatically, “I just like you.”_

 

“Oh Robb…,” Arya shuddered, taking a sip of whiskey.

 

Rickon grabbed the bottle from her and took a sip, “No dude, she’s _hot_. Good for him.”

 

“Rickon you are way too young to be drinking!,” Sansa chided.

 

“These things happen,” Rickon shrugged and took another swig, “Ooh that one!”

 

Just then their father walked into the room. He looked at all of them crowded around Bran’s laptop, two full bottles of alcohol open.

 

“Don’t tell me what you’re doing,” he warned them.

 

“We weren’t going to,” Arya said coolly, taking a sip of the whiskey.

 

“Good, I don’t want to have to testify against any of you,” he told them and they all grinned. “So I’m going to take your mother to dinner. We’ll leave money on the counter.”

 

“Great,” Rickon nodded, “It’ll either go towards pizza or bail.”

 

Ned looked at him in horror and then walked out of the room without another word. It wasn’t until he was half-way down the hall that they all heard him chuckling.

 

Sansa was about to say something further but then the voice of her older brother once again filled the room.

 

_“It’s all going according to plan,” Robb promised, “Myrcella is eating out of the palm of my hand. It’s only a matter of time now until we have what we need.”_

 

“Oh Robb,” Arya repeated.

 

“Click on another one, that’s got to be a mistake,” Rickon offered desperately.

 

Unfortunately, Bran didn’t believe it was. Not after the snippets of conversations he’d overheard in the last few weeks.

 

Sansa took another sip of vodka and shook her head, her eyes watering, “What did you do, Robby?”

 

***

 

They had considered going to their respective apartments downtown, but they knew that his father would want to see them, and truthfully after so much time in King’s Landing he craved the remote comfort of Winterfell.

 

So it was that they’d loaded their bags into a taxi and driven the thirty minutes outside Wintertown’s city limits until they reached his family estate. They paid the driver there and back fee, knowing that he wouldn’t find another passenger until he got back to the city, and grabbed their bags.

 

“Girls are here,” he told Jon with a grin when he saw Sansa’s Range Rover.

 

He’d missed everyone, but particularly his little sisters. With both of them in the city now, he saw them often, going to their apartment for dinner, heading out to the bars with them.

 

Jon blushed and Robb rolled his eyes. All that will they or won’t they stuff between him and Sansa had seemed so far away when he was down south, but it was oddly comforting to know that some things hadn’t changed.

 

They walked into the house and the family’s array of dogs sprinted at him. Grey Wind nearly knocked him over and he rubbed his head vigorously as he licked his face.

 

He felt better already.

 

They walked towards where they heard voices and found themselves in the kitchen. He and Jon chuckled at the scene before them.

 

Bran was sitting at the kitchen island, with a pair of Sansa’s designer sunglasses on his face. Rickon was sitting up on the counter and Sansa was holding his foot and painting his toenails while Arya was pouring them all shots.

 

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?,” he asked with a grin.

 

They all turned to him in tandem and he gulped.

 

“You _dog!,_ ” Rickon chided.

 

“Seriously Robb,” Arya reprimanded.

 

But it was Sansa who took the cake, because she walked right up to Jon and slapped him clear across the face.

 

To say that Jon was surprised would be an understatement. He just stood there, sputtering, while Sansa walked away.

 

Rickon held up his hand for a high-five and she slapped her palm against his and took the shot Arya offered her.

 

“What in Seven Hells is going on?,” Robb asked.

 

“I think,” Arya said, slightly wobbly, “That _we’ll_ be asking the questions.” He and Jon looked at one another accusingly, but realising they were both in the same state of confusion turned back to them a unified front. “First things first,” Arya went on, “Is Gendry single?”

 

“Arya!,” Sansa protested.

 

“Gendry?,” Robb questioned, “How do you -,” he started but then looked towards Bran sitting in front of his laptop. His jaw clenched, “What do you know?”

 

Bran pulled down the sunglasses so that he could only just see his eyes and monotoned, “Everything.”

 

Robb felt a chill run down his spine and he shuddered.

 

Rickon though turned to Bran and said, “Dude that was _so_ good.”

 

“Really?,” Bran asked him with a grin, “I wasn’t sure if I should have gone deeper, you know _Everything_.”

 

This set off the four of them each trying out their own _Everything_.

 

Jon shook his head and walked forward to grab the bottle of whiskey.

 

Sansa grabbed it before he could and shook her finger at him, “No way,” she said, taking a sip of the whiskey. Robb grimaced, she hated brown alcohol and the face she made as it went down her throat really got in the way of the effect she was trying to have. It seemed to do the trick though when she said, “Don’t know where your mouth has been.”

 

“What?,” Jon questioned.

 

“You heard her,” Rickon told him, puffing out his chest and stepping slightly in front of Sansa.

 

“Did _you_?,” Jon asked him, “She’s acting crazy!”

 

Rickon looked at him, then back at Sansa. Sansa’s gaze flicked to their little brother’s and Rickon held it for a moment before turning back.

 

“Your point?,” Rickon challenged, making it clear where his allegiances lay.

 

“I thought it was obvious,” Jon said in exasperation.

 

“Look… guys…,” Robb started, “What you saw isn’t the whole story.”

 

“Oh really?,” Arya questioned, “So you _didn’t_ pursue a girl for the sole purpose of getting information out of her?”

 

“Well…,” Robb started.

 

Bran went on, “And when she asked you what you were hiding from her you _didn’t_ make up some excuse about you leaving soon?”

 

“You see the thing is…,” Robb went on.

 

“And you _didn’t_ sleep with her after lying to her for a month?,” Rickon questioned.

 

“Rick…,” he shook his head, “I…”

 

“Seriously, please tell me you slept with her,” Rickon pleaded.

 

“Rickon!,” Arya and Bran scolded.

 

“ _She’sjustreallyfuckinghot_ ,” Rickon muttered.

 

Robb rubbed his eyes and went into the fridge to grab a beer. He handed one to Jon and opened his own and took a long pull from it.

 

“Jon,” Sansa pleaded, her eyes filled with tears, “You could have stopped it. But you let that poor girl fall in love with him… and then you… you were going to _sleep_ with her?”

 

“Sansa,” Jon started, but it was too late.

 

Sansa fled from the room and Rickon grabbed the bottle of vodka and ran after her. Arya helped Bran back into his wheelchair and they moved to leave without another word.

 

“Guys, wait,” he pleaded.

 

Bran turned back and smiled at him sadly, “It’s good you came home, Robb. The south has a way of rotting things.”

 

He and Jon stood in stunned silence after they left. As far as homecomings went, this was not what he had been expecting.

 

Jon too seemed out of sorts, his eyes wide. Robb knew exactly how he felt. It was a terrible thing to be looked at that way by the girl you love. Like she doesn’t know you at all, like she never did.

 

He sat down at the island and started drinking his beer.

 

“He just found out all of that in what, an afternoon?,” Jon started.

 

“The Three Eyed Raven knows all,” Robb joked, because he wasn’t sure what else to do.

 

“Why didn’t we just ask him?,” Jon asked. Robb looked at him in confusion and Jon went on, “To look into the Lannisters.”

 

_For fuck’s sake._

 

Robb stood up and placed the beer down. He paced back and forth, glancing at Jon who was looking at him like he was a caged beast.

 

Finally he covered his mouth and screamed in frustration.

 

“There it is,” Jon nodded. He picked up the whiskey the kids had left behind and handed to him, “Something tells me beer ain’t gonna cut this one.”

 

Robb grabbed it and took a swig and muttered, “Gym, now.”

 

The pair of them got dressed in their workout clothes and walked to the outbuilding that housed the gym equipment and boxing mat. The wind was whipping and it felt good to be cold.

 

They sparred until they were good and sweaty, until they were both bleeding. He wasn’t sure if Jon felt better but he certainly didn’t.

 

They both went back and showered and though neither of them discussed it, they both ended up back in the hallway.

 

“You seen any of them?,” Jon asked him.

 

Robb shook his head and they wordlessly headed towards Sansa’s bedroom. He knocked lightly and didn’t get an answer but he opened the door anyway.

 

In spite of everything, the sight of them made him smile.

 

All four of them were curled up on Sansa’s bed. Sansa was in the middle of Bran and Arya, her head resting on Arya’s shoulder. Rickon was laying at the foot of the bed, holding Sansa’s foot to his chest like it was a stuffed animal. All the dogs, even his and Jon’s were scattered on the floor surrounding them.

 

Someone had made a fire in Sansa’s fireplace, and the sound of it crackling and Summer snoring were the only sounds he could hear.

 

He realised then how truly loud King’s Landing had been. Even in his hotel room in the penthouse, it was never fully quiet. The quiet washed over him like a wave.

 

_“What are you doing?,” he asked._

 

_“Shh…,” Myrcella giggled, pulling her sheet over their heads._

 

_The early morning sun was warming her cheek and her golden hair was splayed out over her pillow._

 

_“This is my favorite time of the day,” she whispered, “Listen…”_

 

_He waited a beat and then whispered back, “I don’t hear anything.”_

 

_“Exactly,” she smiled, “The city hasn’t woken up yet. In another hour or so the fishmongers and fruit sellers will be outside, and the taxi horns will be blaring, and the whirlwind will begin again. But for now, everything is quiet.” She looked up at him with a worried expression on her face and he traced her cheek with his finger. “That’s how I knew that I was falling for you. I was with you one night and I got this feeling, the feeling I only get at this time of day.” She stroked his chin gently with her knuckle, and her jade eyes looked into his, “When I’m with you, everything just falls away. You drown it out, like a waving crashing over the shore.”_

 

They were right to be upset with him. They were right to feel betrayed. He was their big brother, he was meant to set an example of them.

 

 _“That’s a lot of responsibility,”_ he heard her say in his head.

 

It was worse, being home. In King’s Landing he was just another asshole, but here, his sins were magnified under the gaze of the good.

 

He walked forward and took the bottle of vodka Arya was holding out of her hand and placed it on the night stand. Jon went in the closet and pulled out a large blanket and tossed him one end of it, and they covered his siblings.

 

There were two arm chairs on either side of the bed and he sat down in one, and Jon took the other. He looked at all of them, sleeping so peacefully. He knew the alcohol had something to do with it, other than Arya they were all lightweights, but it went beyond that. They were true innocents.

 

The last thing he remembered before he fell asleep was vowing to be worthy of them once again. 

 

*

 

As though a spell had lifted, the four Stark kids on the bed woke up at the same time. Some of their heads hurt, all of their mouths were dry.

 

Sansa, the eldest of them, sat up so that she could go get everyone water.

 

She tapped Arya.

 

“ _What?,_ ” Arya groaned.

 

“Look,” Sansa whispered.

 

All of them sat up and saw Jon sleeping soundly in one chair and Robb sleeping in the other. Even though they were angry with them, they all felt instantly safer knowing their big brother was nearby.

 

“Ahem,” Bran cleared his throat loudly.

 

Jon and Robb woke up in tandem and rubbed their eyes.

 

“Hey guys,” Robb said sadly. “I’m sorry.”

 

“For what?,” Arya questioned.

 

“For letting you down,” Robb sighed, “For…for all of it. I’m sorry that I did it, I’m sorry that you saw it. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

 

Sansa glanced at her siblings and they nodded at her and so she asked the only question that mattered now.

 

“You love her, don’t you Robby?”

 

He nodded and to their horror, tears filled his eyes. They’d never seen him cry before, and it reduced them all to children.

 

“For the love of the gods, I can’t _take_ it anymore,” Rickon cried, “Get in here.”

 

Robb got out of the chair and crawled onto the bed, in between Sansa and Bran. He wrapped his arms around them both and Sansa curled into him, her head over his heart.

 

“You too Jon,” Arya noted.

 

“I’m uh… good…,” Jon shook his head, “Not really much of a group hug kind of guy.”

 

“Oh get _over_ yourself,” Sansa spat. It would take longer for her to forgive him for what he did.

 

It did the trick though and he crawled on Arya’s other side, tucking her under his arm.

 

“I missed you guys,” Robb admitted.

 

“What’s that thing Dad always says?,” Sansa wondered. “ _The lone wolf dies but the pack survives…”_

 

They all groaned and Arya smacked her in the face with a pillow, “That is _so_ cheesy.”

 

Cheesy or not, they all knew it was true, and when their parents returned home they found them all asleep once again in Sansa’s bed. It seemed the only thing to do was to sit down in the armchairs on either side of the bed and take up their watch.

 

Bran and Robb were the first to wake up and Robb couldn’t help but ask him.

 

“You found all that pretty easily,” he started.

 

Bran shrugged, “I knew what I was looking for.”

 

“How does it work, did you have to make it specific to King’s Landing? Or could you use it to find someone… if you don’t know where in the world they are?,” he asked.

 

“It’ll take a bit longer,” Bran told him, “But I can find basically anyone. The thing is though…”

 

“Yeah?,” Robb asked.

 

“Usually when someone leaves and doesn’t tell you where they’re going, it means they don’t want to be found.”

 

“I just want to know that she’s safe. I just… I have to know.”

 

***

 

“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she grinned.

 

He yawned and stretched, “And to you. Beautiful day, huh?”

 

Myrcella looked out over the terrace she was sitting on. The waves were crashing along the shore and birds were swooping, and the sky and sea met in a mixture of blues.

 

“Like yesterday,” she noted.

 

“And the day before,” they said in unison.

 

He chuckled and sat down and she handed him the coffee pot and then popped a blueberry into her mouth.

 

She wasn’t entirely sure what they’d do today, but they could go for sail, or just down to the beach. They could walk through town or up to the old Sept. She might lose a few hours in a good classic, or even take a decadent nap.

 

She could do anything she wanted.

 

“Have I told you yet,” he wondered, “How very happy I am that you’re here?”

 

She gave him her smile, the one that had only ever failed her once, and said, “You know, I was just thinking the same thing, Trystane.”


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am a monster who can not be stopped.

It was late, but she wasn’t ready to go inside. She loved Trystane’s house, here on Jhalla in the Summer Isles. It wasn’t terribly large but it was beautiful and it hung over the sea as though the people who built it were tempting the gods themselves to deny them their pleasure. It suited him.

 

They’d just arrived back from a party, and she walked over to the outdoor sofa and sat down, leaning back and looking up at the stars.

 

He followed after a moment or two and said, “Do you know what this reminds me of?”

 

“Hmm?,” she wondered.

 

“Do you remember the night that I drove us to the dunes?,” he asked her.

 

She would always remember that night. It had been their first time, her first time.

 

“Don’t make me blush,” she chided.

 

“That blush of yours is far too pretty a thing not to beckon from time to time,” he told her. He sat down on the couch and pulled her legs across his lap, tracing her calves absently. “But I didn’t mean _that._ After…well… _after_ I went back to my car to get you a sweater, and when I came back you were lying in the sand, looking up and smiling to yourself, as though you knew the secrets of the universe.”

 

“As I recall I was just coming down from my first ever orgasm,” she teased.

 

He chuckled and shook his head, “Now who is making who blush?”

 

She giggled and sat up, resting her forearm on his shoulder. Her knuckles grazed his chin and she looked into his kind, golden eyes.

 

“The truth is I didn’t know anything,” she confessed, “Only the way you made me feel.”

 

“And how was that?,” he wondered.

 

“Beautiful,” she shrugged, shaking her head and thinking about it, “And wild, free.”

 

He cupped her cheek in his hand and pressed a kiss to her forehead.

 

“I’ll never forget the first time I saw you,” he let out a harsh laugh, “I’d come to drop something off with your Uncle Tyrion. I was so annoyed with my father for making me run an errand on one of my only free days before I started my internship. And then you walked over the hill. You were wearing this white sundress and you were holding a book in one hand, a peach in the other. And you walked right up to me and you said _You’re the nicest looking boy I’ve seen in some time, and I think you ought to take me to dinner_.”

 

She giggled and covered her eyes, “I was such a ninny.”

 

“You were glorious,” he corrected, “I was mute. So you just said, _I’ll be ready at 8. That should give you enough time to come up with something to say_. And then you walked towards the house. I was still speechless and then you turned around and you gave me that smile of yours.”

 

He let out a sigh remembering it and she blushed, remembering that first night. He’d come prepared and it had been she that had been tongue-tied when he’d come to pick her up, in a pale blue button down, the sleeves rolled up. She’d worn a light pink dress and he’d asked her all sorts of questions, none of which she could remember now. She had been so terrified that he’d think her childish, but by the time their dinners had arrived they had been talking like old friends.

 

It had always been so easy between them.

 

It had taken her by surprise when she first arrived down here, that it was still that way. She was in a state of anxiety the entire flight down, nerves mixing in with all of her other emotions.

 

_Myrcella walked off the plane and though she was in an airport could sense the change in atmosphere. Everyone seemed more relaxed already, everyone except her._

 

_She’d packed light, so she rolled her carry-on suitcase through customs and then followed the signs for Ground Transportation. Her phone contained his address and he’d told her that the taxis were okay to take here as long as they had the neon pink sticker on their windshield._

 

_She stepped onto the escalator and was hit with a burst of island air as she scanned the signs for one that said Taxis. She glanced absentmindedly at the group of drivers holding up signs for their passengers, wondering briefly why she hadn’t thought to arrange a car._

 

_And then she said a sign that read GOLDIE._

 

_She glanced away and then straight back, as she neared the bottom of the escalator, and sure enough it was being held by an outrageously good looking man, tall and broad, with golden skin and eyes, his curls nearly black. He was somehow more handsome while entirely unchanged. The only thing different about him was his smile, where it had once been roguish, looking at her it now it was just… happy._

 

_She rolled her suitcase over until she stood right in front of him._

 

_“Goldie?,” she grinned._

 

_He shrugged and turned the sign around and it read Ms. Myrcella Baratheon, “I hedged my bets in case you didn’t remember.”_

 

_Memories surrounded her, everything in the golden hue she always associated with that summer. Him teaching her how to drive in his antique sports car, splashing in the water gardens like children trying to avoid the heat, the way he liked to play with her hair when they slow danced at parties on the beach._

 

_“I remember,” she all but whispered._

 

_She let out a laugh and so did he and she jumped into his arms. He hugged her tightly, and he smelled just exactly the same, though he was now a man grown._

 

_“I know I didn’t explain much over the phone,” she said as they hugged._

 

_“I didn’t ask you to,” he reminded her, “So you’ll either tell me why you’re here, or I’ll make you forget why you’re here. Whatever you want, Goldie, whatever you need. Gods did I miss you…”_

 

She had ended up telling him everything, all about Robb and Joffrey, even Jon. She wasn’t even sure that she meant to really, but being with him brought it all back. She’d always trusted him, and he’d always proven worthy of it. It was why she’d told him everything that summer, everything that had brought her to Dorne. She still remembered the cool breeze that night as she confessed her secrets to him in the dark.

 

“I’m sorry,” she told him. He raised his eyebrows at her and she went on, “You were so wonderful to me and then… I just left.”

 

“Not of your own volition,” he countered. She looked at him in surprise. “I saw them… take you back. I saw you crying as that large oaf put you in the car. I had come to see if you wanted to go to the water gardens and… your Uncle Tyrion saw me and told me to stay out of sight. _They have strict instructions to bring her back unharmed, no one will have spared a word for you._ ”

 

“You saw?,” she whispered.

 

He nodded, his eyes scrutinising her as though trying to work something out. Finally he shook his head, “I should have known.”

 

“Known what?,” she wondered.

 

There was no predicting the way her grandfather’s thugs had busted in on a wine tasting, telling her that she had twenty minutes to pack her things. To her knowledge her Uncle Tyrion had been out running errands when it happened.

 

“That they wouldn’t give you my letter,” he chuckled harshly. Her gaze fell to his, so he went on, “I went back to school but I couldn’t concentrate. I couldn’t think of anything other than you. What you were doing, if you were alright. I went to King’s Landing, but of course no one would let me near you. They promised to give you my letter…When I never heard from you I thought that maybe you hadn’t cared for me the way I did for you… it took me some time to realise that you’d probably never read it.”

 

“I didn’t,” she shook her head, tears filling her eyes. She hadn’t even known about it. All she had wanted was word from him. With her grandfather’s henchmen she couldn’t get to the post office undetected, even her email was being read. If she had received a letter from him she would have memorised its contents. The paper would have been worn thin from her holding it. “What did it say?”

 

“It’s in the past,” he demured, getting up.

 

She got off the couch, “Not for me!,” she argued, “You’ve had years, nearly a decade to come to peace with it… but I thought…”

 

“That I’d just let you go?,” he questioned and she nodded dumbly.

 

He crossed back to her and took her in his arms and kissed her. It was the first time they had kissed since she was sixteen.

 

He had been a complete gentleman since the moment she arrived. As he brought her into his home there was no awkwardness about where she might sleep, he had simply rolled her suitcase down to an airy guest room. There was a view of the sea from her window and a vase of Braavosi Tulips on the night stand waiting for her.

 

As he took her to explore town they often walked arm and arm, but he’d only grabbed her hand as he lead her through the overcrowded market so that they wouldn’t lose one another. And when they parted each evening it was with warm words, sometimes a kiss to one of their cheeks, but he hadn’t kissed once.

 

He hadn’t even tried, but now he kissed her as though his very life depended on it. As though hers did.

 

He released her, but only barely, and he held her by the back of her head as he told her, “It said that I’d take you away if you wanted. Far enough away that not even Tywin Lannister could find you. It said that I missed you, that I loved you… Myrcella, I never could have just let you go.”

 

She clung to him, afraid that she’d fall down. She remembered what it had been like that first season back. She wasn’t allowed to go anywhere on her own, those two brothers in her grandfather’s employ who followed her everywhere. They were crude and coarse and she wilted underneath their shadow.

 

She lost weight, so much weight, her hair went limp, her eyes lost the light she’d always been told glimmered within them. Everything she had run away from that spring caught up with her and it compounded with missing her freedom, and him.

 

Eventually the weight of it all wore her down.

 

“Trystane I - I,” she started.

 

“Shhh shh, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,” he promised, and he was supporting her in every way of the word, “I’m so sorry, Goldie, I should have known.”

 

She looked at him, the life she might have had. It had been love between them. For a long time she had convinced herself otherwise. That it was just a summer fling.

 

_He was handsome, and older and kind, and I was sixteen. There didn’t have to be more to it than that._

 

_There didn’t have to be, but I’ll reckon that there was._

 

She pushed away from him, and went to the edge of the terrace, gripping the stone. She dry heaved, sure that she would be sick.

 

Her family was a poison in her bloodstream, the only way to rid herself of it was to bleed out. For all her talk of being more than a Lannister, they were always right there, ensuring that she never would be. Squandering any chance of love or happiness, either by accident or design.

 

“Who did you give the letter to?,” she asked him, tears blurring her eyes.

 

“Myrcella,” he shook his head, “It was so long ago…”

 

“Tell me,” she ordered, the tears dripping down her cheeks.

 

“Your mother,” he sighed and she nodded.

 

That was not much of a surprise, her mother had always imagined that she knew what was best for her. Had never bothered herself with the desires of her children. And she had long ago learned that it was a waste of time to expect her mother to be a decent person.

 

_When a person tells you who they really are, listen._

 

She looked at him though, and with clear eyes she saw that he wasn’t finished.

 

“Who else?,” she questioned.

 

He stood up and wiped her cheeks, “Please, you’ve lost so much.”

 

He knew her better than almost anyone, she had, after all, told him everything. Everything from the past few weeks, everything that happened that Spring. He knew her better than anyone and he was pleading with her not to make him go on, which could only mean one thing.

 

“Jaime?,” she realised, her voice breaking.

 

“He was there when I delivered it,” he nodded, tears in his own eyes.

 

He didn’t wait for her to fall, he just scooped her up in his arms. She burrowed into his chest, gripping his shirt in her hands as he carried her to her bedroom.

 

He laid her down on her bed gently and sat beside her.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he told her, his hand stroking her hair, “I would take the pain of losing you a hundred times over if it could spare you this.”

 

She nodded, because she knew he meant it and that kind of statement deserved acknowledgment, but she found that she couldn’t speak.

 

“Do you want me to stay?,” he asked her.

 

Her lip trembled and her eyes watered and she shook her head.

 

He leaned forward and pressed a solemn, reverent kiss to her temple, and the piety in it made the tears spill out of her eyes.

 

He lingered only a moment longer before standing up. He closed her bedroom door behind him and she had never felt so alone. She gave into her tears, letting the pain of that summer and autumn, of the past weeks, wash over her.

 

Everyone always told her she was so clever, but she realised as she lay there how very stupid she was. She had been stupid to think that Joffrey could ever forgive her, stupid to think Robb could ever love her, stupid to think Jaime could ever choose her.

 

She cried until her eyes dried and her cheeks stung from the salt burning her skin. When she felt like she had no more left she went into her bathroom and splashed water on her face. She looked in the mirror and for the life of her, she couldn’t understand why anyone had ever considered her pretty. Her face looked gaunt, her eyes untrusting, her lips chapped.

 

She turned away from her reflection and went to go crawl back into bed, but her throat was parched so she walked back to the kitchen and poured herself some water. She held onto the counter as she drank it, feeling so weak.

 

When she was finished she walked down the hall and turned the knob on the bedroom door at the end of it.

 

“Myrcella?,” Trystane wondered as she walked into his room.

 

He was so beautiful standing there, beautiful and fine, noble even.

 

“My older brother hates me, the man I thought I loved was using me, and the man who…,” she swallowed hard, “I thought cherished me as a daughter has looked me in the eye every day for the past nine years and lied to me…,” she let out a heartbroken laugh as she looked down at herself, “I’m.. a mess. So tonight I really need to be with someone who loves me,” his eyes widened and she saw him start to move towards her and then stop himself, so she took a small step forward and said, “Trystane if you feel even a sliver of what you felt-“

 

He was to her in two strides and picked her up, his lips capturing hers in an urgent kiss.

 

He brought her to the bed and laid her down, his mouth on her neck, his hands pulling the straps of her dress down as his lips dragged to her shoulder.

 

She could feel it, the love emanating off of him, the desire, the want and the longing, and she pulled his face back up to hers, swallowing it all. It felt like medicine rushing through her bloodstream.

 

She pulled him gently by his curls and he looked at her in a way that made her feel beautiful once again. It was impossible not to when Trystane Martell was looking at you like that.

 

“I don’t want to hurt you though,” she told him, but she didn’t loosen her grip. “And I don’t know what this means. I want this, you, tonight, but I’m sure we are breaking some rules here…”

 

He pulled back from her and for a moment she was afraid he’d tell her that she was right, that their history was too complicated, that this wasn’t smart.

 

But in all the time she’d known him, he never had denied her anything.

 

He pulled off his shirt and looked down at her, his eyes shining, his thumb stroking her cheek tenderly.

 

“Don’t you remember, Goldie? I never was one much for rules…”

 

***

 

Robb looked at the computer screen and clenched his jaw.

 

“His name is Trystane Martell,” Bran told him. “He’s the heir to the Martell shipping fortune. He’s lived in Jhalla for the past year. His last year ended a year before that. She arrived on Friday.”

 

She had fled King’s Landing after the masquerade. He and Jon had pushed her over the edge, had invaded her home like an army and provoked her. He had all but brought her to Trystane’s door.

 

In spite of everything, he was relieved to see that she looked well. She looked so terribly well, a grin on her face that made you smile just to see it. She looked younger somehow, as the pair walked hand in hand, and so incredibly beautiful.

 

“Martell…,” Jon mused, “Where are they from again? Highgarden?”

 

Robb watched Myrcella throw her head back and laugh, watched the way Trystane’s eyes fell to her elegant neck when she did.

 

They were totally at ease with one another. The way you can only ever be with someone you’ve loved and you know has loved you in return.

 

_He was handsome, and older, and kind, and I was sixteen. There didn’t have to be more to it than that._

 

_There didn’t have to be, but I’ll reckon that there was._

 

“Dorne,” he answered.


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***this is the second chapter I posted today, so if you didn't read the one I posted this morning go back and read it or you'll be very confused!***

He couldn’t believe that he was actually here, at her door. Everything she had done, everything she had said, told him that she was the last person that he wanted to see. She’d told him to go to hell.

 

She didn’t realise that he was already in hell. That hurting her, that the look of betrayal in her eyes, was more painful than any torture.

 

When you loved a person, you were supposed to put their needs above your own. He knew that, he knew he was being selfish. He knew that if he were a better man he’d walk away, respect her wishes.

 

He also knew that he was never going to love anyone else, and that though there would always be men lining up at her door, that there was never going to be anyone that loved her as wholly, as unreservedly, as desperately as he did, so he knocked.

 

And the most beautiful girl in the entire world opened the door.

 

“Jon,” she blanched.

 

“Sansa,” he whispered reverently, “Can I come in?”

 

She opened her mouth like she was going to say no, but she closed it once again. She didn’t answer but she stepped to the side and opened the door a little wider, so he entered, knowing he would not get a warmer invitation than that.

 

She closed the door behind him and they stood there for a moment, just looking at one another. He knew that Arya had a class at this time, but even still he looked around for her. She loved him, he knew, but when it came to picking sides the Starks sisters always chose one another.

 

“I need to explain,” he started.

 

Sansa crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him stubbornly.

 

“What you saw is not the whole story,” he went on. “There are things… things between Robb and I… that we’ve ignored for a very long time. And everything that happened in the South made it harder and harder to ignore those things. And then Myrcella was there and she was -“

 

“Beautiful,” Sansa spat, her lip trembling. He sighed and shook his head and she growled at him, “Do you deny it?”

 

“No,” he admitted. “She is beautiful, and charming. And-“

 

“I don’t need the list alphabetically,” she cut in.

 

“Sansa, damn it I’m trying to explain!,” he argued.

 

No one could goad him like she could, no one could twist him like her. She pulled his strings and he danced to whatever tune she chose.

 

“You wanted to fuck her, Jon! What is there to explain about that? You WANTED her, just admit it!”

 

“Yes, yes, okay? I wanted her!,” he yelled back.

 

His hands were shaking and he paced away from her. When he turned back he saw her staring straight ahead, her chin raised, her skin like steel.

 

He had spent a lot of time thinking about what had happened. Myrcella was clever, as he said, a Lannister through and through, because she had chosen her punishment perfectly. He had lost sleep over it, playing it over and over again in his mind, imagining the other choices he could have made.

 

_“My car’s waiting,” she whispered._

 

_“Have a good night then,” he said._

 

_“My car’s waiting,” she whispered._

 

_“You’re angry with him,” he said, “You should be. But you love him, and he loves you. He already let his ambition get in the way of his happiness, are you really going to let your pride get in the way of yours?”_

 

_“My car’s waiting,” she whispered._

 

_“You nearly had me,” he chuckled, “Clever girl. Go home, Myrcella. Get some sleep, and know that I don’t expect you to ever forgive me for what I did to you. I’ll never forgive myself for it either.”_

 

There wasn’t a single imagining where he made the mistake that he had that night. He didn’t follow her to the car in a single one of them.

 

“I was angry at Robb,” he told her, “There are things between us that you don’t know, that I’ve never told you. And this whole business down south brought everything to the surface. And Myrcella… was there.”

 

He had wanted her in the moment. He couldn’t lie about that. She was stunning, and playful, and sad. It was a captivating combination. And she had played him like a fiddle.

 

But she could have been anyone. As long as it would have hurt Robb, she could have been anyone and he still would have followed her.

 

“That poor girl,” Sansa said, and he had never loved her more, because nothing could temper the goodness of her heart, not even jealousy. She had tears in her eyes as she went on, “The way you two _talk_ about her - she’s a _person._ She isn’t some prize in your and Robb’s rivalry, she isn’t a weapon to wield against her family!”

 

The disgust radiating off of her made him sick to his stomach. She was right, entirely so. Even still, the vehemence of it surprised him.

 

“How would you feel if someone did this to me?,” Sansa asked him.

 

“Sansa it’s not the same -“

 

“It’s exactly the same!,” she raged at him. “Twenty-five? Check. Bad dating history? Check. Heiress to a powerful family? Check. Seven hells Jon it’s like you are deliberately obtuse sometimes. How can’t you understand that this has changed my opinion of you _irrevocably_? How can I ever think that you might treat m-“

 

“No!,” he argued, “No, Sansa. No - I…admit that there are similarities between you two. And if someone did this to you I would show them _no_ mercy. But you cannot possibly imagine that I could ever think of you as anything other than yourself? You cannot possibly imagine that I would ever do anything even close to this to you?”

 

“How could I not? You said it yourself, Jon,” Sansa chuckled harshly, “If she and I are so similar, how am I different?”

 

“Because I’m in love with you!,” he shouted at her.

 

“You’re what?,” she asked, her beautiful blue eyes wide, her cheeks flushed pink with rage.

 

He hadn’t really meant to tell her that. In fact, he had spent the better part of his adult life trying _not_ to tell her that. Now though, he couldn’t find it in him to take it back. Not when she doubted him, not when she was afraid that she could ever be a means to an end for him.

 

“I’m in love with you, Sansa,” he told her in a softer voice, crossing the distance to her. She didn’t move towards him but she didn’t move away either, “And what’s more, you’re in love with me too.”

 

“That’s quite a statement,” she balked.

 

“Yeah well,” he shrugged, “That was quite a slap the other day.”

 

As soon as he had realised what she was angry about it had hit him like a ton of bricks. Everything he had been denying, all of his doubts vanished. There was no other possible explanation for the depth of her anger.

 

She continued to scowl at him but she wouldn’t meet his eye and turned her head to the side. He watched her, taking in the elegant slope of her nose and the creaminess of her complexion, her rich auburn hair, her slender neck. He was so caught up in his admiration that it took him a moment to realise that she was laughing.

 

“Sansa?,” he asked.

 

She turned towards him and tried to keep a straight face, but covered her mouth as she started to laugh once again.

 

“Sansa?,” he wondered again.

 

This caused her to double over in laughter and he was a little nervous that had he had actually driven her to insanity.

 

“You… love… me…,” she said in between giggles.

 

“You know this isn’t the typical response that guys hope for,” he told her, feeling doubt for the first time, “Did I have it wrong?”

 

“No, no,” she said waving her hand and straightening up and shaking her head, “I’m so in love with you,” she said still laughing, “So in love with you.”

 

Now he understood the hilarity of the situation. She loved him, even though he told her that she had he still hadn’t really believed it. But Sansa Stark would never lie about a thing like that.

 

She loved him.

 

He started to laugh as well, and the pair of them stood there hunched over, tears running down their faces.

 

The front door open and they both turned to see Arya standing there.

 

“What’s so funny?,” she asked them.

 

“We’re in love with each other,” Sansa told her and the two of them burst out laughing again.

 

“Thank the gods,” Arya sighed, “Not sure anyone else would have either of you in your current states…”

 

She winked and wiggled her fingers at them, making some comment about going into her bedroom and putting on her headphones really loudly.

 

When they heard her bedroom door close they looked back at one another. Sansa’s eyes were wide and suddenly there was nothing funny about being this close to the love of his life.

 

The air between them crackled with energy and he reached out, determined to confirm that she was real, that she was standing there in front of him. He rubbed his hand down her arm and she shivered, and when their fingers interlaced he tugged her towards him.

 

“I’m still angry with you,” she warned him.

 

His other hand cupped her cheek, “I know.”

 

“There’s a lot to discuss,” she told him.

 

“Mmmhm,” he agreed absentmindedly, his hand disappearing into her silky hair.

 

“You know you don’t just get to make a grand declaration every time I’m cross with you, right?,” she asked him.

 

“Sansa,” he breathed.

 

“What?,” she breathed back.

 

“If I promise to spend the rest of my life making it up to you, will you shut up now and let me kiss you?,” he pleaded.

 

Her forehead fell against his and she looked up at him. She didn’t say anything, but he felt her nod against him and he knew he wasn’t going to get more of an invitation than that.

 

He touched his lips to hers and she sighed against him, her lips parting slightly. The hand in her hair pulled her more fully against him as he deepened the kiss, their fingers still interlocked as he wrapped his arm around her back.

 

“Okay,” he sighed, backing away only slightly, his eyes starry, “Now you can yell at me some more.”

 

“In a minute,” she whispered against his lips.

 

***

 

“Don’t go,” he pleaded.

 

“It was your idea,” she reminded him.

 

“I know,” Trystane sighed, pulling her to him, “But that was last night, I was much more honourable then.”

 

She looked up into his golden eyes, her fingers touching his cheek so that she might commit the sensation to memory.

 

“You are the most honourable man I’ve ever known,” she told him honestly, “No matter the time of day.”

 

_“Why?,” she asked him, “What did I do?”_

 

_“Nothing!,” he promised her, pulling her into his lap. “This past week with you has been the happiest I’ve been since I was nineteen. I had convinced myself that I was never going to see you again, that my life was going to be lived in tones of grey - and then you came down that escalator and suddenly it was vibrant technicolor.”_

 

_“So why do you want me to leave?,” she asked stubbornly._

 

_It was meant to be only that night, but when they’d woken up the next morning they reached for one another wordlessly. Since then they’d spent their days and nights in a brilliant pattern of happiness._

 

_“Because being with you is the brightest my life will ever be,” he told her, and she opened her mouth to repeat her question, but he answered it, “But for you there is someone who shines brighter still.”_

 

_She shook her head, “We’re over, that’s all done now.”_

 

_“I know it feels that way right now,” he smiled sadly, “But you forget that I was the first boy you ever loved. I know what it is to be loved wholly by you, and as wonderful as this past week has been, there is a part of you that travelled North with him.”_

 

_Tears filled her eyes, “I love you though.”_

 

_He smiled at her, letting out a pained laugh as tears filled his own eyes, “Oh Goldie I know you do,” he said and kissed her solemnly, “But now you’ll always love him more.”_

 

_She was no liar, so she said nothing. He was right, as much as she didn’t want to admit it. Robb was still there, it was though he had branded his name into her heart - it was painful, and permanent._

 

_“I haven’t been fair to you,” she admitted._

 

_“It’s not for my sake that I’m letting you go,” he told her, “I’ve always considered myself a proud man, but my pride has never stood a chance against my love for you. If I was convinced I could make you happy, then I would settle for being second in your heart. But I’m not convinced,” he said, his lip trembling and he pulled her by the back of her head and pressed his lips to her forehead steadying them, “So I have to let you go.”_

 

_She nodded, he was right. She couldn’t argue, she’d book a ticket. She’d let him go too._

 

_“Just not tonight,” she pleaded._

 

_“No, my sweet girl,” he agreed, picking her up and carrying her to bed, “Not tonight.”_

 

“And the stupidest as well,” he teased and she giggled.

 

“Thank you,” she said. It was such a pitiful thing to say, but it was the truest thing she could say too. “There’s no one else,” she shook her head, her eyes stinging, “No one else that could have brought me back to life. You’ve done it twice now,” she cry-laughed.

 

“I pray that you’ll never need it a third,” he told her, “But if you do, it would be my distinct privilege to revive you - anytime, anywhere. I left you to the lions once before - it’s not a mistake I’ll make a second time.”

 

She jumped into his arms and he caught her easily. She breathed him in as he squeezed her tightly.

 

After a long while he set her down and there didn’t really seem like there was anything more to say. She knew that they may not become the sort of friends that texted every day, but she was also confident that this was not the last time she’d ever see him. They wouldn’t lose one another again.

 

She kissed his cheek and took hold of her bag and started walking towards security.

 

“Goldie!,” he called to her and she turned around and raised an eyebrow at him, “It’s alright, you know. To forgive him. It’s not a sign of weakness, it just means your better than them.”

 

“Than who?,” she asked.

 

“Your family,” he said.

 

“I love you, Trystane Martell,” she smiled, “Always have, always will.”

 

***

 

“You’re sure about this?,” his father asked.

 

Robb breathed out, and nodded, “Positive.”

 

His father looked at him for a long while. He had been in this seat so many times, his father quiet and contemplative. He’d never forget when he got a B- on a Biology exam in high school. His father’s disappointed silence had been a harsher punishment than any he’d ever known.

 

Until now. There was one silence that raged louder than even his father’s.

 

Finally his father nodded, “I’ll make the call this afternoon.”

 

“Thank you, sir,” Robb said gratefully, standing up.

 

There seemed little else to say so he made for the door.

 

“Robb,” his father said.

 

He turned back, “Yes sir?”

 

“You did a bad thing,” he told him and Robb nodded, “It doesn’t mean you’re a bad man.”

 

Tears stubbornly filled his eyes and his breath caught.

 

“You’re my son,” his father went on, “My first son. And you are brave, and intelligent, and _good_. Do you hear me?”

 

“Yes sir,” Robb nodded.

 

“Good,” his father said, and then offered one of his rare smiles, “And Robb? How about from now on, we go with Dad.”

 

***

 

Myrcella’s heels click-clacked on the marble floor as the security guard waved her through. Though it was little more than an autumn chill outside, it felt harsh against her newly golden skin.

 

The familiar scent of apricots in the air greeted her as she stood in the elevator banks, using the code for the executive elevator that would take her straight to the penthouse offices held by the most senior members of Lannister Corp.

 

“Hello Shae,” she smiled at the receptionist.

 

“M-miss Baratheon,” Shae stuttered standing up, “Your Uncles and Grandfather are just in a meeting, you’re welcome to wait here -“

 

“No thank you, Shae,” she demurred, “I’ll just go join them.”

 

“Miss Baratheon!,” Shae called but she was already walking down the hall that lead to the executive conference room.

 

She opened the door and saw the three of them sitting there with a small team of lawyers.

 

“Myrcella!,” her Uncle Jaime cried.

 

“Hello you,” she smiled at him, bile rising in her throat.

 

“Young lady,” her grandfather said sternly, “This is not the time.”

 

“Grandfather,” she smiled, “You look well,” she said as she pulled out a seat and sat down. He fixed her with a steely gaze that made her grin, “What, don’t I?”

 

“You look lovely,” her Uncle Tyrion supplied and she looked at him blankly for a moment and then smiled, “Where have you been, we’ve been worried sick.”

 

“Oh I was seeing an old friend, Trystane Martell? You remember him don’t you? Tall, quite good looking -,” she reasoned and turned to her Uncle Jaime, “Uncle Jaime, perhaps you could describe him? I know it’s been a while since you last saw him though… what is it now? 8? 9 years?”

 

“Out!,” her grandfather shouted.

 

Everyone sat there in stunned silence.

 

“He was talking to all of you,” she finally explained to the lawyers.

 

All at once they stood up, shuffling papers and she crossed her legs, her gaze set on her grandfather’s. Anyone else would have cowered under that gaze, but she was Myrcella Baratheon, she would not be daunted.

 

When the last of them left and closed the door behind him she placed her hands on the table and waited.

 

“That is the _last_ time you interrupt my business with your theatrics,” her grandfather warned her.

 

“Well considering all that I’ve given up for _your_ business, I think I’m entitled to interrupt it with my theatrics from time to time,” she suggested.

 

“All that you’ve given up,” he chuckled mirthlessly, “Those boys were not worthy of your time let alone your heart.”

 

“That is an easy thing to say when your heart died long ago,” she argued, “When you have forgotten what it is to love.”

 

“Watch yourself,” he warned her.

 

“Or what?,” she wondered. “What are you going to do to me? Are you going to have your thugs kidnap me again? Are you going to bug my phone? Lock the door and throw away the key?,” her mirthless chuckle a perfect echo of his.

 

“If that’s what it takes,” he allowed.

 

“You’re so smug,” she realised absently, and sighed in boredom, “I never saw it before.”

 

“Myrcella, I know that seeing Trystane must have drudged up a lot for you,” Uncle Jaime started.

 

Her gaze flicked to him and she was pleased to see him flinch, “Uncovered some things too.”

 

He opened his mouth to say something but when she raised her brow at him he closed it once again.

 

“But you’re right, Uncle Jaime,” she told him, “It did drudge up some things. Made me think about a lot in fact. Like the reason I went to Dorne in the first place.”

 

Her gaze flicked back to her grandfather and she waited. He pursed his lips and she could tell he was hiding a smile.

 

“Alright then,” he said finally, “I can see now that you’ll not be deterred, so name your terms. But be quick about it, we have a flight to catch.”

 

“Oh?,” she prompted.

 

“Yes, before you so politely interrupted us we were making the arrangements,” he told her, “Ned Stark called. The Starks are ready to sign. We head North tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> would love to hear your thoughts... I figured some people might be curious after the last chapter about Jonsa so I couldn't resist adding them in!


	14. Chapter 14

“Yes I think we’re very close,” Tywin said.

 

“Close?,” he asked incredulously, glancing at Jon who looked equally frustrated, “This was meant to be a signing and we’ve been here for four hours. We damn well better be close.”

 

“Watch yourself, Stark,” Jaime spat at him.

 

“Let’s all calm down,” his father suggested. “I think we’ve made great progress. Our lawyers have agreed to the property titles and yours have signed off on our additional incentives. So once these amendments are made, I think we’ll be good to go, don’t you?”

 

Tywin and Jaime looked at one another and Tywin nodded once before saying, “Perhaps. We just have to get buy-in from our last signatory.”

 

“Last signatory?,” his father asked, the diplomacy gone from his voice, “I thought that it was just you two? Where in Seven Hells are they, as my son said, this was meant to be a signing…”

 

“Yes, well,” Jaime shrugged smugly, “They had some loose ends to tie up down south and had to fly commercial. But…,” he said, looking at his phone, “It looks like they’ve just arrived.”

 

With that he stood up and opened the door as though he owned the place.

 

 _Seven fucking hells_.

 

“Jon, Robb,” Tywin said, the barest hint of a smile on his face, “I believe you know my granddaughter Myrcella.”

 

His mouth went dry at the sight of her. It had only been a couple of weeks but it felt like years had passed since he’d last seen the brightness of her eyes or her delicate little hands.

 

She wore a long sleeve dress in deep Lannister red and it set off her newly tanned skin brilliantly with no adornments except the slim gold wristwatch that had once belonged to her grandmother. All the men in the room sat up a little straighter but she looked only at one.

 

“Mr. Stark,” she smiled, crossing right by him and Jon. “It’s a pleasure to make your acquaintance. I’m so sorry that I’m late.”

 

His father stood up and cleared his throat, “Miss Baratheon, the pleasure is all mine. And please don’t apologise. Had we known you were coming, we would have waited.”

 

“Grandfather,” Myrcella chided, understanding his father’s meaning immediately. She shook her head as she walked back around the table. “You always did love an ace in the hole, didn’t you?”

 

Tywin’s gaze flicked to his as he said, “Well the best weapon is the one kept well hidden.”

 

Wordlessly Jaime moved over a chair, pulling out the one he’d just vacated for her. He and Tywin retook their seats, flanking her like a pair of sworn shields. It was equal parts infuriating and alluring the way she made the office chair look like a throne.

 

“I interrupted you all,” she said graciously, the smile that she always used with clients on her face, “Where did you leave off?”

 

“We were wrapping up actually,” Jon practically snapped at her.

 

“Oh,” she nodded, that single syllable dangling by a thread.

 

He looked at Jon, _don’t_.

 

“You seem unconvinced,” Jon took the bait anyway.

 

“Well the plane ride gave me a chance to read over the most recent draft of the contract,” she said, reaching into her bag and then plopping the thick tome on the table. “And I must admit I have some concerns. Shall we begin with Section 1 Part F Clause 3?”

 

***

 

In spite of herself, she liked the North. The landscape was austere but beautiful, and the air was fresh in a way that not even the Summer Isles had been.

 

She was staying in the Wintertown Grand Hotel, which was gorgeous and historic and was twenty precious blocks away from where her uncles and grandfather were staying.

 

After the meeting she’d come back and taken a swim and gotten a massage, and then she’d gotten dressed and come down to the hotel bar. It reminded her of the Oak Bar in King’s Landing, and therefore Robb, but then again everything seemed to make her think of him. Especially here.

 

He’d been nearly silent in the meeting. At first it was shock, she knew, but after a while she realised that he was fuming. He’d looked gorgeous in his charcoal suit, he’d shaved his beard and she’d not realised that it was possible for a jawline to be that sharp.

 

She’d taken her cues from him though and ignored him. They’d only gotten a little ways through her edits before everyone had showed signs of fatigue so they’d tabled the discussion for tomorrow. 

 

She took a sip of her martini and glanced around. Some people like her were on their own, but most were in couples or small groups. She saw a few men trying to catch her eye and she ignored them, trying to make herself look as unapproachable as possible.

 

“Ooh sorry is anyone sitting there?,” a friendly voice asked her.

 

She had clearly failed.

 

“All yours,” she smiled politely at the girl.

 

“Thanks! Grenn, can I get a lemon drop martini please?,” the girl asked the bartender.

 

“Sure thing, beautiful,” the bartender grinned.

 

The girl sat down and Myrcella took another sip of her drink. She felt a pair of eyes on her a few times. When it became strange not to, she looked over. She had to be the most beautiful girl she’d ever seen, with creamy skin and blue eyes, gorgeous auburn hair.

 

Even she reminded her of Robb.

 

“Please tell me that tan is spray on or I’ll have to just die of jealousy,” she said.

 

Myrcella giggled, “Afraid not,” she said as the bartender placed the drink down in front of her, “But if you promise not to die I’ll add your drink to my tab.”

 

The girl smiled and nodded, “Sounds reasonable.”

 

They clinked their glasses against one another’s and each took a sip.

 

“So where’s it from?,” the girl asked and Myrcella raised her eyebrow at her, “ _Your tan_.”

 

“Oh!,” Myrcella smiled, “The Summer Isles. I just got back yesterday.”

 

The girl sighed and rested her elbow on the bar, her chin in her palm, “Are they as dreamy as everyone says?”

 

_“Trystane!,” she giggled, “Stop!”_

 

_“But how can I?,” he growled at her playfully, hovering over her on all fours. He took her hands and raised them above her head and peppered rapid fire kisses to her cheeks, “You’re too delicious.”_

 

_She shrieked with laughter as he started tickling her, the early morning sun warming them, the sea breeze making her hair dance lightly._

 

_Finally she tackled him back, straddling him, “You’re my prisoner now. What do you think of that?”_

 

_The mirth died in his eyes and the way he looked at her was as tangible as a caress._

 

_“I think that there is no sentence long enough to satisfy me,” he said softly, and rolled her back over, his palm on her cheek, his fingers in her hair, “So I will make the most of my confinement.”_

 

“Even more so,” she said sadly.

 

“I know that look,” the girl sighed, “Men are the worst.”

 

Myrcella smiled, “Not all of them. And even when they are…”

 

“Cheers to that, sister,” she said and raised her glass again.

 

Myrcella clinked her glass again and offered, “I’m Myrcella, by the way.”

 

“Sansa,” the girl smiled.

 

“Sansa…,” Myrcella repeated.

 

Robb’s favourite sister was named Sansa. She was a beauty, the most renowned beauty in the north. Like her older brother, she favoured her mother in appearance.

 

Sansa’s eyes widened. Tully eyes.

 

“Where is he?,” Myrcella asked her.

 

Sansa gave her an apologetic look and waved across the bar.

 

“Unbelievable,” Myrcella muttered and signalled Grenn to close out her tab.

 

“Wait!,” Sansa pleaded, “Just wait. They promised no more games.”

 

“Then what in Seven Hells was that?,” Myrcella questioned, just as Robb approached with Jon in tow. “The wolves of Winterfell. Here, one of you can take my seat.”

 

“Myrcella please, just wait,” Robb asked her.

 

“I’m sorry,” Sansa said and she turned to glare at her but the girl seemed unafraid, “I just had heard so much about you, I wanted to see what all the fuss was about.”

 

Myrcella opened her mouth to retort something, but just ended up asking curiously, “And?”

 

Sansa scrunched her nose adorably and sighed, “I probably would have tried to sleep with you too.”

 

It was such a ridiculous thing to say that for a moment Myrcella was well and truly speechless. And then she burst out laughing. Sansa laughed too, an apology in her eyes and Myrcella nodded. It felt as though she understood her already somehow.

 

The boys did not share their mirth or understanding.

 

“What are you doing here?,” Jon asked her.

 

“I _was_ enjoying a truly excellent martini before you lot showed up,” she told him.

 

“I meant in the North,” Jon corrected, which was obvious.

 

“I came to sign the contract,” she told him.

 

“That’s funny,” Robb said, though his tone suggested it was anything but, “Because as far as I can see, you’ve given me a whole lot of shit for lying to you when you _never_ once mentioned being involved in this.”

 

She looked up at him and there was an angry vein in his forehead and his blue eyes were borderline murderous and he was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

 

“In the last round of negotiations you added in four more facilities, did you not?,” she asked calmly.

 

“We did.”

 

“Which increased the capital Lannister Corp. was putting up by two million dollars, raising it above the threshold that requires three signatures,” she noted. “I didn’t tell you I was involved because until that decision was made I was not required to be.”

 

“Look Myrcella, I did what I did,” Robb started, not bothering to apologise for assuming the worst of her, “But this deal is good for our companies. A lot of livelihoods depend on it happening. Don’t destroy it just because you’re pissed at me.”

 

“I agree that it _could_ be very good for our companies,” she allowed, thinking about the hard copy of the contract she had in her room, dripping in red pen, “But not in its current state. Come on, Robb, don’t you know it’s just business? It’s not personal…”

 

He gritted his teeth and she smirked at him. It was impossible not to enjoy his annoyance a little.

 

“And what you did to Jon, was that business too?,” he seethed at her.

 

That pain though, that anger, that was like a slap to the face and she fought the urge to flinch away from him. She’d never seen it before, but she realised now that to anyone else he really could seem quite terrifying. She was Tywin Lannister’s granddaughter though, she’d been raised amongst lions, she would not quiver before a wolf.

 

“I’ll admit,” she shrugged, letting a bit of boredom creep into her tone, “ _That_ was a bit personal.”

 

He didn’t have to know that she had been sick to her stomach, that she hadn’t even been able to eat the burger that Gendry took her for, the pain she’d inflicted upon Jon threatening to eat her alive. He had no business knowing a thing like that.

 

She took a sip of her martini as Jon and he conferred with their eyes, seemingly unable to decide who was going to try next.

 

“Sansa why don’t you give us a minute?,” Jon said finally.

 

“Why?,” Sansa challenged, “Don’t want me to watch you two get beat by a girl?”

 

“Sansa,” Robb said.

 

“Out of the three of you, she’s the only one I like so…,” Myrcella cut into their sibling squabbling.

 

Sansa turned to her and grinned, Jon chuckled angrily and signalled for a drink and Robb sighed. He drained his whiskey and slammed it down on the bar.

 

“We told my father we’d handle this,” he told her, “Tonight.”

 

“Then by all means,” she smirked looking at Jon, then Sansa who winked at her, and finally at Robb, “Handle me.”

 

***

 

Fuck he’d missed her.

 

She had changed since the meeting earlier today, and was now wearing a form fitting black turtleneck and black jeans, her newly golden skin makeup free, her diamond earrings catching the light. She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.

 

Even as she was driving him to insanity, he could not help but marvel at her. She was, as he had known from the beginning, a worthier opponent than either of her uncles. Sharp and quick, and unyielding.

 

He and Jon pulled up seats, knowing this would not be a quick conversation.

 

“Can we start over?,” Jon asked. “Why did we not know that you had voting capabilities at the company?”

 

Myrcella looked between them all and though he knew that she wouldn’t lie she would withhold any information she did not deem them worthy of hearing. She had a way of answering you that made you think you had the whole story, when really she had told you nothing.

 

It was infuriating, and impressive, and he’d been practising the technique ever since he’d first noticed it. 

 

“I’m rarely called into sign or vote,” she told them, “And when we do there is a clause put into the non-disclosure agreement noting that my involvement would be kept private.”

 

“Why?,” he wondered.

 

She looked at him coolly, “Why do you think?”

 

He shook his head, “No. It’s not because of things like what I did. Your grandfather trusts you…”

 

She looked at him blankly and he missed the way her eyes used to shine when they locked onto his.

 

“Have you always had these rights?,” Jon wondered, opting for a different tactic.

 

It was annoying, but Robb had to admit she was more receptive to his questions than his own.

 

“When my father died he owned significant shares in Lannister Corp., with voting interest. He left them to me,” she told them in a bored tone.

 

“I’m so sorry about your father, Myrcella,” Sansa said sweetly, her eyes distraught. She covered Myrcella’s hand with her own and squeezed it and Myrcella smiled gratefully at her. He and Jon’s gaze met and they both looked away, ashamed that there first thought had not been to do the same thing. “When did he die?”

 

“The day before my sixteenth birthday,” Myrcella said, smiling sadly.

 

He had known that, she’d told him that on her second date. But not about the shares. Sixteen was far too young to have that much responsibility thrust upon you.

 

Her birthday was in March, he knew, late March, the 27th. The Will would have been read in early April. His death would have been a surprise, Robert had only just entered middle age. It was sudden too, an aneurysm, he wouldn’t have had time to prepare. Time to discuss his decisions with her. With anyone.

 

_That bitch took everything from me._

 

“That’s what Joffrey was talking about, isn’t it?,” he realised. “That’s what you took from him…”

 

“Robb…,” she warned, and it was the first time she looked anything resembling scared.

 

It made her look so young, he could almost picture her then. Sixteen and innocent, she must have felt like she had the weight of the world on her shoulders. She should have been relaxing in the sunshine and instead -

 

_I worked on it the summer I turned sixteen, my rebellious year._

 

He remembered being at Supper with her when she’d tasted that Dornish wine. Even then he’d known it was the key, the way of getting past her cool bravado.

 

He had just failed to understand the depths that lurked beneath.

 

He pushed on, “Joffrey is older than you, and he’s the male heir. Traditionally those shares should have gone to him - or possibly your mother.”

 

“This has nothing to do with anything,” she dismissed, but she wouldn’t meet his gaze.

 

“It has _everything_ to with why he barged in on us, why he plotted against you -,” he argued, his heart breaking all over again as he relived the exact moment she’d realised what he’d done. “Why you hate me.”

 

“Joffrey didn’t force you to use me,” she pointed out.

 

“No,” he allowed, “But he made damn sure to tell you in the cruelest way possible… All because your father loved you better.”

 

“Robb that’s enough,” Sansa warned him.

 

“That’s why you went to Dorne -,” he went on, because in all his life he had never been so afraid for someone. “You weren’t rebelling you were _running_. But you wouldn’t run from your responsibilities, what happened?”

 

She slid off her stool and said, “Tell your father you failed. Again,” and moved to go by him.

 

He couldn’t stop himself, he grabbed her by the arm. He did it as gently as he could, but she had been walking away with such purpose that she all but fell back. He steadied her and she glanced up at him briefly, her jade eyes screaming something at him, but then she looked across the bar and shook her head.

 

He followed her line of vision and saw two men standing up and looking at them warily. One was young, handsome, 6’4 at least, and the other was even taller than that, a big oafish man with a grim face.

 

“I thought you didn’t like being followed,” he said stupidly.

 

“I’m in an unknown city,” she pointed out, “Of course I have protection.”

 

“But I told you that Wintertown was safe,” he argued.

 

“And you lied!,” she argued back, wrenching her arm out of his grasp, “About everything else, so why would I take your word for it?”

 

“Myrcella how many times do I have to apologise?,” he asked her.

 

“How about once?,” she suggested.

 

“What?,” he questioned. “I’ve apologised a hundred times.”

 

“No,” she shook her head, “Actually you haven’t. You’ve told me it wasn’t personal, and that you’d never meant to hurt me, you’ve asked me to forgive you and told me it was out of character. But I’m sorry? Without buts, or explanations, or excuses? Not once, Robb.”

 

“But you have to know that -,” he started.

 

“But it’s not the same is it?,” she interrupted.

 

There was nothing to say to that. She was right, it went without saying. And though all he wanted in that moment was to tell her how sorry he was, without buts, or explanations, or excuses, he knew that it would mean nothing now.

 

Myrcella turned to Sansa and said, “I promise I’m not usually like this.”

 

“Ohhh believe me,” Sansa shook her head, “You are not the one I’m judging in this situation.” Myrcella smiled gratefully at her and Sansa pressed on, more delicately than he had, “But please don’t let these boors run you off when you still have a perfectly good martini sitting here.”

 

Myrcella sighed and avoided his gaze as she returned to her seat. She took a small sip of her drink.

 

“We have deserved everything you have said and done since you found out,” Jon told her, “But Robb’s right, there are a lot of people depending on this deal, it could mean an economic boom for a whole city. Please don’t let what we did get in the way of that.”

 

“I’m not,” Myrcella said, letting out an exasperated laugh, “As I said, until yesterday I was not involved in these negotiations, I hadn’t seen the contract until I read it on the plane this morning.”

 

“And don’t you trust your uncles and grandfather?,” Jon asked her.

 

It was not lost on Robb that she did not acknowledge his question with a response.

 

Instead she said, “In section 7 clause B, the wording is ambiguous enough that should my family or yours decide at any point that this is no longer a worthy venture, that they can pull out of the deal thus bankrupting the company in Braavos and then all of those people who are depending on this, that _economic boom_ , it all goes away.”

 

“What?,” Robb asked, “No…”

 

“I imagine you have the contract in your email?,” she prompted, she gestured to both of them, “Read that section and tell me I’m wrong.”

 

He and Jon both pulled out their phones and he scrolled through to section 7.

 

_In the event that…_

 

She was right. Of course she was. He looked up at Jon who’s jaw was clenched, and he knew he’d realised the same thing.

 

“Scroll down to section 15 part e,” she urged them and he scrolled through quickly, “You’ll note-“

 

“FUCK!,” Jon exclaimed and Robb read over the sentence.

 

He expected her to look smug but instead she looked disappointed.

 

“You’ve been a part of these negotiations for months, did you even bother _reading_ it?,” she asked.

 

He had, he had spent nights pouring over it, but he hadn’t caught either of those things. He hadn’t been looking for something like that. He hadn’t known to.

 

He had been thinking like a Stark, when he should have been thinking like a Lannister.

 

Which lead him to wonder why she would be pointing these out to him. If she was so concerned with loyalty to her family, why would she thwart their plans? He could tell by the wording that it had come from her family’s lawyers, not his. Baelish specifically.

 

“I can’t imagine your grandfather will be happy about you bringing this to our attention,” he said.

 

Her jade eyes locked onto his for a moment but then she drank the last few drops of her martini and stood up.

 

“I think we’re done here,” she said. She turned to Sansa, “It really was nice to meet you. I had heard such wonderful things, it was lovely to see them for myself.”

 

“Myrcella -,” he started.

 

Jon stood up and stepped in between them, pressing a hand to his chest, “Why don’t we just leave it there tonight, Robb?”

 

Myrcella glanced up at Jon and said, “You may have deserved what I did, but I really don’t like that I did it.”

 

“I really don’t like what I did either,” he told her, and they nodded at one another like they understood.

 

To him she said nothing, she didn’t even spare him another glance.

 

There was some hope in that.

 

She wasn’t refusing to look at him, she couldn’t look at him. Because he saw her, saw through all the bravado and coded language. He always had and she knew it.

 

He watched her walk away, watched the two men follow her, and then a third join them.

 

“Jon, make sure Sansa gets home alright,” he said.

 

“Of course, but don’t do this,” Jon said, knowing exactly what he was thinking.

 

He looked at him, “What would you do if it was Sansa?”

 

There was nothing that Jon could say to that.

 

“Robb don’t, it’s a mistake,” Sansa warned.

 

He finished his glass of whiskey and shrugged, “Far from the first I’ve made.”

 

***

 

She was shaking by the time she got to her door, and the three of them tailing her were suffocating.

 

She wanted to tug her turtleneck off of her, but she knew it wouldn’t be enough. It was her very skin that she wanted to be rid of.

 

Being around Robb was like her heart being pierced by a hundred thousand arrows, and she hated how much his opinion affected her.

 

“Why did you go to Dorne?,” his deep Northern voice asked as though she’d conjured him. 

 

She glanced to her left and shook her head, “That’s none of your concern.”

 

_Leave it alone, you fool._

 

“None of my -,” he started but stopped when Gregor walked towards him.

 

“Time for you to go,” he said, reaching for Robb.

 

“Gregor,” she snapped and he pulled back immediately.

 

“I know you were with him,” Robb told her, ignoring the giant planted in front of him, and she felt the pain in his voice as though he’d struck her. “Trystane - I know -“

 

Gregor and Sandor, even Arys looked at her curiously and she fought to keep her voice even.

 

“That will be all, I’ll be in for the evening,” she told them, “You should go get some rest, I’ll be running at 6 am tomorrow.”

 

“Do you want us to see him out?,” Arys asked her gently and she shook her head, smiling at him gratefully.

 

He had always been her favorite.

 

They walked by Robb, Sandor and Gregor knocking him in the shoulder as they did. He remained unmoved, his gaze on hers.

 

She opened her door and gestured for him to enter. He walked towards her slowly, as though he had chosen this of all moments to give her the opportunity to send him away.

 

She felt the heat radiating off of him as he neared, and she hated herself for being drawn to him even now. His eyes were cloudy as he stood in front of her and her mouth went dry.

 

He was the one that broke the moment, walking by her into her suite and she took a deep breath and followed him, closing the door behind them.

 

“Are you insane?,” she asked him, “Saying that in front of them?”

 

He turned towards her, “They’re your grandfather’s guards. Their loyalty has been bought.” She opened her mouth to protest but shut it once again and he smiled grimly. “By him. They’re loyal to him, not you.”

 

“He’s my grandfather,” she stated.

 

He chuckled, “Such a talent of yours. Lying by only telling the truth. He is your grandfather, yes, that cannot be denied,” he looked at her, “And they are employed by him, and you hate being followed. You looked like you wanted to crawl out of your skin. Odd, that.”

 

“Have you ever had a security detail?,” she asked him. His jaw clenched and she smiled, “No you wouldn’t would you? The Young Wolf doesn’t need protection, does he? So you don’t know what it’s like as a woman to feel a man constantly behind you, to feel his breath on your neck, to know that even though he is charged to protect you he could snap the very life from you on a whim, to imagine that a part of him might like to.”

 

“Did one of them do something to you?,” he demanded, his face contorted in anger.

 

She wasn’t entirely sure what to say. She had already said too much. It was why she had left after all. He had always seen through her, most especially when she didn’t want him to.

 

“Myrcella,” he pleaded, “I am imagining the worst…possible things and I fear I’m going to go mad if you don’t answer me.”

 

She knew that Trystane was right, that it was okay to forgive him. She knew that it didn’t make her weak, that like Gendry said, the part of her that was capable of mercy, and forgiveness, and guilt was the part of herself she had been fighting tooth and nail to protect her life.

 

Even still, she didn’t forgive him.

 

In order to forgive him, she had to trust him, and she wasn’t sure that she could do that. The pain in his voice though, the fear in it, it was the foundation of something. And there was not a bone in her so spiteful that would wish the depth of it on anyone. 

 

“They never harmed me,” she told him, and then realised that foundation would only be sturdy if it was even, so she amended, “Save a few handling bruises.”

 

“Handling bruises?,” he questioned, his voice at the bottom of a tomb.

 

He didn’t ask her why anyone in her family’s employ would dare harm a hair on her head and his eyes were darting between scanning her body as though the bruises might still be visible and looking towards the door as though he intended to find them and make them answer for their sins.

 

He was thinking about her, only her, and now that she knew what to look for she could see the difference. She could see the battle he had fought every time they were together, could pinpoint the moments that he pressed forward with his mission and the moments that he’d abandoned it. And she could see now, clear as day, that the latter outweighed the former ten to one.

 

It was like another brick being laid down, the ground she stood upon felt sturdier already.

 

But Robb had stumbled onto quicksand without even realising it.

 

“Before I say anything else,” she warned, “You should know that if you breathe a word of what I’m about to tell you to anyone, it is not my wrath you’ll face. You need to promise me that you’ll never tell a soul, not Jon, not your father, not anyone. You can leave,” she suggested, then urged, “You should leave. Please.”

 

“I can handle anyone’s wrath,” he told her bravely, dumbly. “Apart from yours.”

 

“And I’ll not subject you to anyone’s wrath,” she argued stubbornly, lovingly. “Apart from mine. Promise me, Robb, prom-”

 

“I promise.”

 

She gestured to the couch, “Then you might as well make yourself comfortable while I figure out where to begin…”


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was a doozy. I know everyone was curious about what happened and I wanted to make sure to get it right. Hope it isn't a let down!
> 
> *also, a few people were asking from the last chapter what Myrcella did to Jon. It was what she did to him after the masquerade when she tricked him.

 

There was a lump in his stomach as he waited. She seemed to be sorting through what to say, not, as she usually might, to avoid disclosing something she shouldn’t, but rather like this was a story she’d never told, and she wanted to make sure to tell it right.

 

“You were right,” she told him, which was not how he expected her to start, “When you said that my father loved me better than he loved Joffrey. I knew it my whole life, and so did he. But it went beyond that. You see my parents had a… marriage of convenience. That became, as the years went on, very inconvenient to them both. As part of her dowry -“

 

“Dowry?,” he interrupted. “This isn’t the Middle Ages.”

 

She smiled, “Traditions die slow deaths in the South. Nobody calls them that anymore, of course. Now they are just graciously called wedding presents, but they are dowries. They are negotiated, agreed upon. One of the terms of my mother’s was that my father would be granted voting interest in Lannister Corp. My mother always hated it, which I can’t really blame her for, it was archaic. Those shares were hers, not just by right, but she had earned them. She’d interned at the company, gone to business school - but my grandfather gave them away, and her as well, to a man who would never love her.”

 

_Myrcella never saw that though and he loved her for it._

 

“But he loved you,” he said.

 

She smiled a heartbreaking smile, “He did. For all his faults, and they were many, he loved me. And that love clouded his judgment.”

 

“Trusting you with his shares was not a mistake,” he argued as gently as he was able.

 

“But bequeathing them to me was,” she corrected. “My mother never expected them to come back to her, and she knew she’d never hold any sway over my father, so she placed all of her hope on Joffrey. She coddled him, spoke to him of the great power he would one day yield, gave him everything he wanted, forgave anything he did.”

 

“What did he do?,” he asked her. Her gaze flicked to his and she shook her head slightly. He leaned towards her and took her small hand in his, “I promise I will not tell a soul.”

 

She kept her gaze on him and her hand in his, but she reached with her other hand and pushed up her sleeve. He looked down at her slender forearm and then he saw a small half-moon shaped scar.

 

“Did he bite you?,” he growled.

 

She pushed her sleeve back down, her cheeks flushed, “No. He… it was the shard of a teacup.”

 

“How old were you?,” he wondered, swallowing down the bile in his throat. She didn’t answer him and he looked up at her, “Myrcella how old?”

 

“I was six.”

 

“No,” he choked out.

 

The thought that he had stood in the same vicinity as this mongrel and not snatched the very life from him would haunt him for the rest of his days. But this wasn’t about him.

 

“Did he hurt you again?,” he asked her.

 

She shrugged as though it didn’t much matter, “He was never gentle, but as we grew older he focused more on emotional cruelty. My father knew what he was like, knew what my mother wanted. By the time he died, they had hurt one another in a thousand different ways. And his final act of vengeance was granting me those shares.”

 

She let out a pain laugh, “You should have seen everyone as they read the Will. Everyone was all dressed up, none of them were sad. No one. Except me, and Gendry. Tommen was too I suppose, but he was too afraid to show it. Joffrey came in like a peacock. No one seemed to realise that my bequeathments were five times longer than everyone else’s. Not until they started being read. I got the home in Storm’s End, my grandmother’s art collection, the trust was split equally between the four of us, which caused the first row of the day, but then mine kept going. Until they got to the shares. You should have seen the fit my mother threw - she tore it up. It took them ages to print a new one.”

 

He thought of her, sixteen and in mourning for her father, a black bow in her hair, her jade eyes rimmed in red.

 

“Everything sort of… spiralled from there. Joffrey went on a bender, my mother hired a lawyer. Uncle Jaime brought me to stay with him. He was working late one night in early June, school had just let out. Joffrey came and…,” she trailed off.

 

She look spent, and somehow thinner.

 

“Do you want to take a break?,” he asked her and she nodded. He glanced around and saw that there was a small kitchen in the suite, “I’ll make some tea.”

 

He stroked her hair once, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms. He wouldn’t push his luck though, not now.

 

He stood up and went into the kitchen, filled up the kettle with water and turned on the stove. He opened the box of assorted teas and pulled out jasmine for her and mint for him.

 

“Do they have jasmine?,” she asked as she came into the little kitchen. He held up the packet and she smiled, “Thanks.”

 

She hoisted herself up on the counter and picked at a thread on her sweater.

 

“I like Sansa,” she told him after a moment and he smiled.

 

“I’m glad,” he said truthfully.

 

Their silence resumed once again as the water slowly heated up.

 

“I’m sorry,” he said finally.

 

“I think it’s the old stove that’s the issue here,” she joked.

 

“No, I’m sorry,” he repeated and her eyes flicked to his.

 

“Robb you don’t -,” she started.

 

“Yes I do,” he told her and he stepped closer to her, “I’m not asking for you to forgive me, I just need to say it, and you need to hear it, without buts, or explanations, or excuses - I am so sorry.”

 

“Thank you,” she said softly, but he could tell that she meant it.

 

They looked at each other for another moment and it seemed as though she wanted to ask him something, but all at once the kettle started screaming angrily.

 

Whatever she was going to ask disappeared and so the only thing to do was to remove the kettle and turn off the stove. He poured water into each of their mugs and she picked hers up and breathed in the steam.

 

“Do you want to hear more?,” she asked him.

 

“I want to hear everything.”

 

***

 

It hurt to bring it all up again, but surprisingly it felt almost good too.

 

She and Robb went back to the couch. He sat down first, at one end, and she knew him well enough to know that was on purpose.

 

She placed her tea down on the coffee table and sat in the middle and if he was surprised he was too smart to show it.

 

“The short version of that night is that Joffrey came in, at first I thought he was sober because I was so use to him slurring, but I realised sometime later that he was high on something. He told me to transfer the shares to his name.”

 

“Or?,” Robb growled, knowing a threat when he heard one.

 

“Put your tea down,” she ordered.

 

“Myrcella,” he sighed.

 

“I’m in the splash zone, put it down,” she demanded.

 

He shook his head and put his mug down on the table. To be safe she put hers down as well.

 

“He told me that if I didn’t transfer the shares, that he’d kill me,” she told him. “I know that sounds ridiculous, like the threat couldn’t possibly be real but-“

 

“I looked into his eyes, Myrcella,” he reminded her, “I know that it was. What did he say?”

 

“He had thought it all out,” she said, “How he would do it, how he’d get away with it, what he’d do to me before.”

 

“What he’d do to you be- _,”_ Robb trailed off as he understood.

 

“I’m sure you’ve heard the rumors about my mother and Uncle Jaime?,” she prompted and he nodded, “Yeah well, he told me that before I died he’d continue on their tradition - that he’d fuck the Lannister right into me.”

 

“I - I’m sorry,” Robb said and he got up from the couch.

 

He walked into the bathroom his back rigid and closed the door. A half moment later she heard the sound of him retching.

 

Her heart sank at the sound of it and she walked into the kitchen and grabbed a glass to fill up with water. She went over to the bathroom and when she heard the toilet flush she waited a moment and then knocked.

 

He opened the door and the sight of him nearly made her knees give out. She handed him the glass of water, urging her hand to stop shaking. He took it and gulped the entire glass down.

 

“The hotel left an extra toothbrush in the medicine cabinet,” she told him, “If you want.”

 

He nodded and pulled it out and she grabbed the toothpaste from her toiletries bag and handed it to him. She wasn’t entirely sure what to do, whether he wanted a minute to himself or whether she should stay.

 

She hadn’t told anyone this since that summer, and she realised now that she had glossed over the worst bits with Trystane. He knew enough to know that it was serious, to know that she was haunted by it, but she had never told him all of it.

 

So she hadn’t known to expect this reaction. She wondered if this was how normal people would react, or if it was simply because he loved her.

 

He finished brushing his teeth and he looked at her, “Keep going.”

 

“Robb we don’t -,” she tried to demure.

 

“I want to hear everything, Myrcella,” he repeated, his blue eyes simmering with quiet rage, “I have to. Please. What happened next?”

 

“Well,” she sighed, and started walking back to the couch. He followed her at a safe distance, as though remembering what she’d said about the guards. “I was sixteen, and scared, Uncle Jaime wasn’t picking up so I called my mother. I told her everything, and she didn’t believe me. She told me I’d misunderstood what he meant,” she let out a harsh chuckle, “And then… she said… _You know, Myrcella, you really don’t sound right at all. I’m concerned for you, I’m going to come get you and I’ll take you to Qyburn.”_

 

“Qyburn?,” Robb asked.

 

“He’s a doctor she knows,” she explained, “She wanted him to commit me.”

 

“All because she wouldn’t believe that Joffrey would do that?,” he ask incredulously.

 

“No, not all because of that,” she corrected, “If he declared me insane -“

 

“Then power of attorney would be transferred to your next of kin,” he realised. “She wanted to take hold of the shares.”

 

“I told her not to do that, I… I don’t remember what I said I just remember what she told me. _This all could have been avoided if you’d just given them back. Any true Lannister would have._ ”

 

“So you ran,” Robb guessed. “Of course you did. How could you not have?”

 

“Because I still had one last stop to make…,” she corrected. “I didn’t even wait to get off the phone with my mother before I hopped in a taxi.”

 

“Jaime?,” he asked.

 

“No, I knew even then that he’d hold no sway over them, so I went to the only person I knew might just frighten them more than he frightened me,” she told him.

 

“Tywin,” he realised.

 

She still remembered the way the driver slowed the car as it travelled down the long driveway, as though this stranger might protect her from what lurked inside.

 

_“Do you want me to wait, Miss?,” he asked._

 

She never could understand how she knew to tell him yes.

 

“I found my grandfather in his study, I wasn’t crying, I remember that, and what he was wearing. I remember everything about it,” she realised. “I asked him to help me transfer the shares into Joffrey’s name, and he refused. So I asked him to split them evenly between Joffrey, Tommen, and myself - fooling myself into thinking that this might appease Joffrey and my mother. Even still, he refused.”

 

“But they were in your name,” Robb reasoned.

 

She nodded, and though she was finally telling him all the things he’d wanted to know at the beginning, he was not asking as a Stark. Just as Robb, just him, like she’d wanted all along.

 

So she told him, “My grandfather still has the controlling shares… and has utilised that to ensure his interests are protected. He has to approve all transfer of ownerships above a certain amount.”

 

“But that would mean…,” Robb started.

 

“That he knew what my father had done all along,” she confirmed.

 

“And he thought Joffrey would just be okay with it?,” he guffawed.

 

“No, he just didn’t care.”

 

“Did you tell him what Joffrey said?,” he asked.

 

“For all the good it did me,” she remembered his steely gaze. “You know, he wasn’t even surprised? It was like he had expected it to happen sooner or later. He offered me my mother’s old room, _if you’re that scared of a petulant little boy_. Offered me the services of the Clegane brothers, whom you just had the privilege of meeting.”

 

Robb spat, “So he offered you a glorified prison cell, and thugs to guard you. And yet he would not give you the one thing that could secure your safety? Why? He loves you - in his own way. I’ve seen it.”

 

“He does,” she allowed. Jaime hadn’t been wrong when he told her that her grandfather cared for her more than almost anyone. “But just as my father loved me better than Joffrey, Tywin loves his company more than he loves anyone.”

 

“So rather than risk his precious company by placing it in Joffrey’s care, he chose to risk you,” Robb raged.

 

“I was sitting in his study when I realised that,” she told him, “I looked down at myself and I saw that I was still in my nightgown. His only granddaughter came to him unannounced and terrified in the middle of the night, dressed only in a cotton nightgown and a pair of running shoes,” she laughed harshly, “And he just… well he just lived up to his reputation, didn’t he? _When your son stands at the head of our empire, Myrcella, you’ll remember this day and thank the gods I was not some indulgent old fool. Until then, remember that you are a Lannister first. Or I’ll be forced to remind you of it._ ”

 

***

 

_You’re a Lannister._

 

_I’m more than that you know._

 

It all made sense now. He saw it, clear as day, her reaction when Joffrey played that recording.

 

_What’s she like?_

 

_She’s a Lannister._

 

He remembered when he’d gone to the auction house after she’d found out. He’d pulled her outside and tried to explain.

 

_Please, Myrcella, please you have to understand it wasn’t personal, it wasn’t about you at all. I was after your family, the Lannisters._

 

_Can’t you understand how that makes it so much worse?_

 

He’d been such a fool. He thought she meant merely that she was a means to an end, or perhaps even that her familial loyalty stretched far deeper than he’d realised. Both would have been more than enough justification for her anger.

 

Little did he know that she had been abused and neglected and threatened all in the name of the Lannisters, and then he had come along, boasting of caring only for her, and reduced her to the very thing that had caused her so much pain.

 

No wonder she hated him. He hated himself.

 

But her story was not over.

 

“What did you do?,” he asked, his voice methodic, detached, as if he was a doctor asking her symptoms.

 

“I thanked him for his wise counsel,” she told him and it felt as though she’d struck him, but she went on, “And then I ran like hell. Uncle Tyrion didn’t know what to do when I showed up. I had nothing with me, I’d walked from the bus station still in my nightgown,” she smiled, “The sight I must have made.”

 

He couldn’t think about what she must have looked like, not if he wanted to stay sane enough to understand the rest of the story.

 

“So he didn’t tell them where you were?,” he asked warily.

 

In the past few minutes he had learned what she must have learned some time ago, that monsters lurked behind every corner.

 

“You might have noticed that my grandfather prefers Jaime, he doesn’t try to hide it. Tyrion has long considered himself the ally of the downtrodden. _Cripples, bastards, and broken things_. I’d come with nothing and he bought me enough clothes and books to last me a hundred lifetimes, he paid me a wage even though I did hardly anything to earn it. In cash so that they couldn’t track my spending. He even sent some of his own men along with theirs to look for me, playing the part of the worried uncle.”

 

“So how did they find you?,” he wondered, knowing there was no possible iteration of this story where Myrcella went back to them of her own volition.

 

“I went out one night, it was the first night I ever got drunk. A special rum from Astapor,” she said and shuddered with a small giggle. He hated himself for momentarily being distracted by how adorable she was. “There was a girl there who couldn’t pay her tab and I stupidly put it on my card.”

 

“So they traced you.”

 

“That’s what I thought, anyway,” she said softly and he raised his eyebrows at her. She smiled and looked away and when she looked back there were tears in her eyes. She shook her head, swiping away the one brave tear that had fallen on her cheek. “I found out later that Tyrion had slipped up, and my grandfather began to suspect him. He threatened him with disinheritance.”

 

“So he betrayed you,” Robb growled.

 

“He wasn’t the first,” she shrugged, “Nor the last.”

 

“Myrcella I-“

 

“I’m not talking about you,” she told him coldly, a new edge to her voice.

 

He couldn’t quite understand it but it seemed different, somehow, like this pain was fresher, and deeper somehow.

 

“So what happened?,” he asked.

 

“One day I was leading a wine tasting while Uncle Tyrion went on errands, convenient that. The Cleganes barged in. They smashed all of the wine bottles and glasses that were on the table,” she let out a tear filled laugh, “These poor people were just on vacation and they… anyway they ran, thinking they were thieves. I knew though, and I told them I wouldn’t go back. They chuckled, and grabbed me, I fought.”

 

“Handling bruises,” he said, remembering how this conversation started.

 

“I was on the family plane back to King’s Landing within the hour.”

 

“No wonder you hate a security detail,” he shook his head, realising once again what an ass he had been by questioning her on them, “After that.”

 

“There was no _after_ ,” she told him, and he’d never seen her look so uncomfortable. Her back hunched and she stuck her fingers inside the neck of her turtleneck and pulled it away from her skin as though it was choking the very life from her. She shook her head repeatedly as though banishing the memories even as she went on bravely, “At that time my family agreed on nothing apart from one thing, that I was a traitor. I wasn’t even brought back to Uncle Jaime’s, but to my mother’s. To-“

 

“Joffrey,” he realised, his world turning red.

 

She had told them all what they had done and still they brought her to live under the same roof as them.

 

“ _If you’re so scared of him, you should be down on your knees thanking me for offering you this protection_ ,” she said in a voice that sounded eerily like Tywin. “There were guards posted outside my room at all times, underneath my balcony. But in spite of what he said they weren’t there for my protection. Come September they came to school with me, they drove me everywhere, followed me everywhere. They made my friends nervous so they stopped inviting me out with them. My phone was bugged so I stopped making calls. My emails read so I stopped writing them.”

 

“That must have been so lonely,” he said, trying to swallow but finding himself unable to.

 

“It was the loneliest I’d ever been. I still went horseback riding and running, I still swam in the sea, but I had no one to talk to, and far too much time to think. So it all came back, everything I had been pushing away while I was in Dorne everything Trys-,” she stopped herself and said, “Everything I’d been able to push aside came rushing back - the grief of missing my father and my anger at him for leaving me in such a mess, everything with Joffrey and my mother and grandfather. The weight of it all became too much.”

 

Tears stung his eyes and he didn’t want to know but he had to ask, “Did you hurt yourself?”

 

“Not intentionally,” she told him, “I didn’t have much of an appetite and I went weeks without sleeping more than two hours a night. I didn’t take care of myself the way I should have - I just kind of…drifted away.”

 

“How did you come back?,” he wondered.

 

How did anyone come back from that? How was it possible that the most vibrant, alive person he’d ever known had once been brought to the brink of death.

 

He knew she was glossing over some of it. Her frame wouldn’t support skipping two meals in a row, let alone months of it. Without sleep the light he loved in her eyes would have dulled, without food her lovely face would have turned gaunt, her bones on display for all the world to see.

 

“Gendry. He started driving me to and from school. He bought The Forge around the same time. With his portion of the Baratheon Trust he would have had enough money to buy and sell it a thousand times over but he told me he wanted us to own it together. He was the only one that wasn’t afraid of the Clegane brothers.” She smiled, a true smile now, “One day, we were there, though he’d hired professionals he had wanted to do a lot of the construction himself. I spent hours there doing my homework while he worked. One day he even turned to Gregor and handed him a hammer saying, _If you’re gonna loiter in my bar and stalk my sister, you’re at least going to make yourself useful._ ”

 

Robb chuckled, which felt strange, but he was glad at least that he’d had that right. Gendry was the brother Myrcella deserved, at least there was one man who’d always been worthy of her.

 

Her eyes lit up at the sound of it, as though she had been fearing for him in this conversation as much as he feared for her. He didn’t understand how she could still care for him, his happiness after what he did.

 

But then he thought of the mirthful tone she used with Tywin, the love she bore Jaime, and he realised that forgiving those who didn’t deserve it was a long practiced habit of hers.

 

***

 

The sound of his chuckle was like a soft blanket being wrapped around her.

 

When it died down, she noticed that she did not lose the warmth of it.

 

“How are you so close with them now?,” he asked her.

 

She wasn’t surprised by it, it was the obvious question anyone who had seen her with them might ask.

 

“Even with Gendry helping me I couldn’t stand it,” she told him, “One day I snapped and I went to my grandfather’s office and I told him that if he didn’t call them off I’d be forced to handle things a different way. He almost smiled at me, and said, _Name your terms_.”

 

“It was a test,” Robb growled.

 

“An initiation,” she corrected. “I named my terms, and he named his.”

 

“That you’d keep the shares,” he guessed.

 

“And return to the fold,” she added.

 

He nodded grimly, and then his brow furrowed.

 

“But you said Tyrion wasn’t the last to betray you - who?”

 

“Maybe we should just stop there for tonight,” she suggested.

 

“How can it be any worse than what you’ve already told me?,” he wondered.

 

She sighed, and told him, “Because it involves Trystane.”

 

He let out a chuckle and shook his head, “Most girls would welcome the opportunity to torture me with stories of their ex.”

 

“I would never treat him like a weapon to wield,” she snapped and the mirth died in his eyes.

 

He didn’t smile but his eyes softened and he nodded, as though he understood, “Tell me about him.”

 

“I’d been there about two weeks when I saw him for the first time. Like I said, he was older, and handsome, and kind. And when I met him I needed something good, and safe, and I fell for him instantly. We spent the summer together, his father was furious because Trystane wouldn’t tell him who he was seeing. But he knew that he couldn’t, his father knows my grandfather.”

 

“You told him?,” he wondered, sounding as though he was trying to keep the pain from him voice.

 

“Enough,” she allowed, “For him to know that I didn’t like sneaking around for the thrill of it. Even without everything else happening, sixteen is an important time for a girl and… well he just made it all okay, you know? The parts of me that were still childish and the parts that were growing up too fast, he protected the first and he didn’t take advantage of the second.”

 

“He sounds like quite a man,” Robb said sincerely, graciously, “The kind of man that you deserved, then and now. And I’ll bet he loved you.”

 

“He did,” she said confidently.

 

“Then how could he let you go?,” he asked, “I mean… didn’t he -“

 

“Yes,” she interrupted. “I’ll get to that. After the masquerade I got back to my apartment and I felt suffocated like I had all those years ago. I wanted to crawl out of my skin, I wanted to flee, and I realised immediately where I wanted to go. Who I wanted to see. So I made a few calls and tracked him down. It was easier than I thought.”

 

_“Is this Trystane Martell?,” she asked._

 

_“Myrcella?,” he breathed._

 

_“How did you know it was me?,” she wondered._

 

_“I’d know that voice anywhere. Though I’m not sure I like how it sounds right now. Where are you?,” he asked._

 

_“King’s Landing,” she said._

 

_“I’ll be there first thing tomorrow morning,” he promised._

 

_“Actually I was hoping to come to you…”_

 

“One night we got to talking and -,” she started.

 

“Maybe I don’t need to know everything,” he grimaced.

 

She laughed in spite of herself, “What I was _going_ to say is that… well some things were said and it came out that he had come to King’s Landing that first Autumn after I left. I only knew the guards as a wall keeping me in, but they were just as effective at keeping others out. He tried to see me and was removed, not gently I might add, and brought to my mother’s house while I was at school. She refused to let him see me, but acquiesced to give me a letter he’d written. She um… well she never did.”

 

“So you thought he’d abandoned you,” he realised, “Betrayed you.”

 

“I thought he’d forgotten about me,” she shrugged, “That it had just been a summer fling, that’s what I told myself it was too. So no, he didn’t betray me. My mother wasn’t alone when he went to see her. Jaime was there.”

 

“He never told you?,” Robb asked and she shook her head. “No, he loves you like a daughter. He may be the only one in your family capable of love. I’ve… I’ve _seen_ it, I’ve _felt_ it, he loves you the way my father loves Sansa. It doesn’t make any sense.”

 

“Actually when you think about it like that, it makes perfect sense,” she said hollowly.

 

_“We’ll see you tomorrow for the signing,” her grandfather said._

 

_“I’d like a copy of the contract to read,” she told him. He looked at her icily and she said, “Come now, Grandfather. What kind of Lannister would I be if I trusted someone else with my name?”_

 

_He gave her one last look and nodded before leaving. She picked up her bag and went to follow him out._

 

_“Myrcella, wait -,” Jaime pleaded._

 

_“I have nothing to say to you,” she told him, willing herself not to cry._

 

_“I’m sure he’s told you,” Jaime went on away, “About the letter.”_

 

_“He did,” she said, “Which is what you should have done nearly a decade ago.”_

 

_“I know,” he told her. “I know that I should have. But you have to remember what you were like at that time. He came at the start of October, when you were at your lowest. I’ve never seen someone fold into themselves the way you did, you looked like a light breeze would knock you over, you didn’t speak unless someone shouted at you to do so. I wanted to get you help, to take you away and get you proper help, but every time I brought it up your mother suggested Qyburn and I knew what that would mean. We were arguing about it, that day, when he came to see her. I’d heard there was some boy you were involved with, it was only a matter of time before someone turned your head, but he was no boy. He threatened to go to the police, he’d seen the Clegane’s take you away, he was so afraid for you. Your mother held her ground, and I helped her, I’ll admit it. He gave her the letter and then he looked at me, I’ll never forget that look, and then he left without another word.”_

 

_“And let me guess,” she said, “She burned it immediately.”_

 

_“No,” Jaime swallowed, “She read it.”_

 

_“You have known the words he wrote to me for the past nine years, you knew that he loved me for nine years, and you have looked me in the eyes every day of each one of them and allowed me to believe he’d forgotten me.”_

 

“The letter told me that he’d take me away if I wanted him to,” she explained, “And Jaime was afraid that I would have gone, and he’d have lost me forever. My mother told him that when I was better she’d give it to me.”

 

“And he was stupid enough to believe her,” he spat. He looked at her, a question in his eyes and she nodded, “Why didn’t you ever go to him? I assume you knew where was?”

 

She’d thought about that a lot recently and she sighed, “Well at first I was so heavily monitored it wouldn’t have been possible. And then… even after I was brought back into the fold, I never forgot what happened, who my family was. And I suppose I wanted one memory untarnished with grief. I’d learned by then that if you waited long enough, people would always betray you, but to me, Trystane was still perfect - and I needed to know that something good existed. And without me in his life, he was safe. So I stayed away.”

 

“Until last week,” Robb said.

 

“Until last week,” she repeated.

 

Even though he had no right to be angry with her, she still feared his reaction. She might enjoy getting under his skin but she had no desire to truly cause him pain.

 

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

 

“What?,” she questioned.

 

“For sticking around long enough for you to see my betrayal,” he explained. “I’ve thought about it so much over these past weeks, how I should have just walked away. How I should have just left you go.”

 

“Part of me wishes you had,” she admitted, tears flooding her eyes for the first time since they’d started speaking.

 

“I just couldn’t,” he said, tears pooling in his own.

 

“I know,” she nodded, the tears spilling out.

 

“It was real,” he said, his voice cracking, “So much earlier on than I admitted. I lied to you at the start, but it was myself I was lying to as the weeks went on.”

 

“I know that too,” she assured him.

 

“And I love you,” he sobbed.

 

A sob wracked her own body and she dug the heels of her palms into her eyes, trying to force her tears back inside. She was so sick of crying. She nodded in acknowledgment, as she pulled her knees to her chest, burying her face against them.

 

“But it doesn’t change anything, does it?,” he asked her, fighting to steady his breath.

 

She looked up at him and her heart tore in two seeing the pain etched into is features as though it would never leave them.

 

She couldn’t stop herself, she sat up on her knees and closed the distance between them and took his face in her hands and swiped the tears off of his cheek. He kissed her palm and her wrist and she felt that warm molasses spreading through her veins.

 

She leaned her forehead against his.

 

“I know love you me,” she told him, “I do -“

 

“Don’t say but,” he pleaded.

 

“I don’t know you,” she told him, admitting the thing that had been haunting her since it happened. “I thought I loved you, but I loved an apparition, a shadow on the wall.”

 

He took her gently by the neck and pulled her against his lips. Wildfire rushed through her veins and she let out a moan, “That is not an apparition,” he said and kissed her again, “Nor a shadow.”

 

She felt herself falling against him, it was so easy, and pushing him away was the hardest thing she’d ever done, but she did it all the same.

 

She pushed out of his arms and fell back against the back of the couch.

 

“Wanting you and knowing you are not the same!,” she told herself as much as she told him. “I-I can’t…it’s… it’s too much.”

 

“Okay, okay, Myrcella,” he said, raising his hands up, “I - fuck I shouldn’t have done that I just…”

 

“Wanted to?,” she supplied.

 

“Yeah,” he chuckled and she smiled, “I really fucking wanted to… I should go though, it’s late.”

 

She nodded and stood up, hating herself for being disappointed. She followed him to the door, and she was surprised by how heavy her limbs felt. She was exhausted.

 

He turned to look at her as she was yawning and he gave her a sympathetic look and traced her cheek with his finger.

 

“Thank you,” he said, “For telling me. I know it wasn’t easy.”

 

“It was easier than it should have been,” she told him honestly, “And you know me better now.”

 

He looked lovingly at her and pressed a kiss to her forehead. She opened the door and he started down the hall.

 

She was going to let him go, she really was.

 

“Seems a little unfair, that,” she called though.

 

He turned around a grin on his face, recognising the lilt in her tone, “You know I was just thinking the same thing. So I’ll take you for dinner tomorrow night and tell you anything you want to know.”

 

“And what if I have plans?,” she teased.

 

He chuckled, “Cancel them.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not to beg for comments but I'm reaaaal curious on this one


	16. Chapter 16

“You know Robb,” Myrcella said, “When I said I’d have dinner with you, this isn’t _exactly_ what I meant.”

 

He couldn’t really blame her for her surprise but he merely shrugged and grinned.

 

“You said you wanted to get to know me right?,” he asked. She tucked a lock of hair behind her ear and nodded, “Well there’s really no better way.”

 

He opened the door and held it for her, and they were immediately assaulted with delicious smells. Her stomach growled and he chuckled at her as she helped her out of her coat.

 

“Don’t laugh! I thought those negotiations would _never_ end today,” she sighed.

 

In truth he hadn’t either. He was grateful that she’d found those clauses, but after he’d pointed them out to his father, they had all decided that a complete rewrite might be necessary.

 

They had gone back to basics today and they all bore fatigue from it.

 

“Well luckily for you, this place has the best food in the North,” he told her.

 

She smiled up at him, and said, “Thanks.”

 

“For what?,” he wondered.

 

“I know you’re angry with them,” she told him, “But you kept it together well today.”

 

It had been difficult, sitting in such a confined place with Jaime and Tywin knowing what they had done to her. He suspected that it wasn’t just him he’d been endangering though if he breathed a word of what he knew, and besides, he’d made her a promise.

 

“You placed your trust in me,” he told her, “This time I’m going to be worthy of it.”

 

“Well in that case,” she said, handing him the bottle of wine she brought, “I guess you better throw me to the wolves.”

 

He offered her his hand and she looked down at it for a moment and hesitated before slipping her small one into his. His body was on fire from just that one touch, but the desire he felt was far outmatched by the gratitude.

 

He walked her down a long hallway, passing by all the familiar rooms until he got to the one he was looking for.

Everything kind of stopped when they walked into the great room at Winterfell.

 

All of his siblings were there, Arya and Rickon on the couch, Bran and Jon tinkering with his computer, all apart from Sansa.

 

“Hey guys,” he said and they all turned to look at them in tandem.

 

Arya, Bran and Rickon all stared at Myrcella like she was a lion in a zoo. To her credit she didn’t squirm, she just smiled at them.

 

“Hi everyone, I’m Myrcella,” she said.

 

They just continued staring.

 

“Guys,” he chided.

 

“Oh! Sorry!,” Bran finally snapped out of it, “We uh… we’re just not used to you in 3-D?”

 

“Huh?,” Myrcella asked.

 

“I wouldn’t ask too many questions,” Jon suggested. He stood up and walked over to her and placed a kiss on her cheek, so different than the reception he’d given her last night. “Thanks for having my back on the incentives thing.”

 

“Of course,” Myrcella nodded, “The system they were going to employ is totally antiquated and I appreciated your support on the maternity leave thing, I just think it’s - I’m sorry,” she shook her head and glanced between them and then gestured to the kids, “Are they always like this?”

 

Robb and Jon turned to look at Bran, Rickon and Arya who were all staring in rapt attention at them. Bran even had popcorn, which he could have sworn was not the case a moment ago.

 

“No they are _not_ ,” he said and warned, “And they are going to stop right now.”

 

Arya came out of it first and got off the couch and walked over to them.

 

“Sorry Myrcella,” she said, “You’re just kind of famous around here. I’m Arya.”

 

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you,” Myrcella smiled, “I’ve heard a lot about you.”

 

“Me too!,” Arya noted, “Can you do me a favor and say _Then by all means, handle me_?”

 

Robb’s brow furrowed as did Jon’s, “How did you - have you been spying again?”

 

“No, you idiot,” Arya shrugged, “Sansa told me obviously. But seriously was it like _Then by all means, handle me,_ ” she said in a threatening voice, “Or was it more flirtatious than that.”

 

“You’re doing it wrong,” Sansa said as she came into the room. “Put a bit more boredom into it, and just a _hint_ of smugness.”

 

“Smug?,” Myrcella laughed, “Was I really smug?”

 

“Yes - it was _divine_ ,” Sansa assured her as she stepped forward and hugged her. She greeted him next and pressed a kiss to his cheek saying, “Guess I was wrong.”

 

Rickon came up next and said, “Hey there beautiful, I’m Rickon.”

 

“Hello,” Myrcella said with a grin.

 

Rickon threw his arm around him and said, “I know we look alike but uh, I’m _nothing_ like Robb you know, I mean… if you need someone to treat you right or anything you just, you just let me know because I’m avail-“

 

“Rickon!,” Robb laughingly admonished. “Where’s your sibling loyalty?”

 

“Dude, _look_ at her,” Rickon said.

 

Myrcella giggled and said, “Careful Robb, or I’ll just have to take him up on it. Rickon, maybe you could introduce me to your mother? I’d love to see if she needs any help in the kitchen.”

 

Rickon grinned as though he’d just won the lottery and offered Myrcella his arm. She took it and they walked off towards the kitchen, she laughing lightly at something he said.

 

“Wow,” Bran nodded.

 

“That was so cold blooded,” Sansa noted.

 

Arya let out a fake sob and said, “I’m just so damn proud of that kid.”

 

***

 

She’d realised as they all settled down for dinner that this was a mistake.

 

She’d known it before, guffawing at him when he told her where he was taking her, but she could have never anticipated _this_. The warmth in the Starks’ laughter and the loving way they teased one another.

 

All the kids were more than happy to give Robb a hard time but then Sansa told him about one of her coworkers who was trying to make her look bad in front of her boss, looking to him for advice on how to deal with it, and Arya beamed when he told her he’d be able to make it to her fencing competition, and Bran asked him to look over his econ paper, and Rickon proudly told him that his coach had promised come springtime to let him wear the same jersey that he had.

 

They all looked to him, relied on him, depended on him, just the way she had imagined when he told her about them on their first date. Seeing it in person though was so different. At first she found it difficult to reconcile the contradictions within him, and then she realised that all of the darkest parts of his nature were in service to them. All to protect them, their futures, their legacy.

 

Watching him with Sansa made her think of Gendry, she had never seen anyone else look at a girl the way Gendry looked at her, and it wasn’t fair.It was too much, he was too much, he always had been.

 

Everything he’d done since coming to her hotel room last night had showed her how much he wanted her to give him a second chance. He was him, the man she’d told him she’d wanted, the one she’d seen in him all along.

 

She didn’t want some cowering flower, and when he’d looked at her apologetically in the meeting after going against her on one of the points she couldn’t resist winking at him. She didn’t want a yes man, someone to stroke her ego, who gave up who they were for her. She liked being challenged by him, liked seeing his strength, liked seeing who he was.

 

She liked that he was cocky when the time called for it and conciliatory when necessary, she liked the growing warmth she saw between him and Jon that had been absent in the times she’d met him, and gods help her she liked the way he looked in a suit.

 

She preferred what he was wearing now though, a deep forest green sweater and a pair of dark jeans. He had a bit of scruff and sitting around his family’s table he looked entirely at ease, the way she’d only seen him a few times when their masks had slipped in the comfort of her apartment. He laughed more easily, his smile bore no design.

 

The Starks too were a threat in their own way. Sansa and Rickon had claimed her on either side, and Sansa had taken to whispering corrections as her family members told stories - fact checking them all. Bran asked her if she’d really gone to the Citadel, it was his top choice, and when she’d offered to connect him with one of her old professors his smile had lit up his whole face. Arya alternated between teasing Jon and defending Sansa and had blushed a deep crimson when Robb and Jon smothered her cheeks in kisses on either side, though she clearly adored the attention of her big brothers.

 

Robb had told it true when he said that his parents loved one another, it was impossible not to feel. It wasn’t the way she’d seen some of her friends’ parents act in second marriages, there was nothing unseemly or inappropriate in the way they looked at one another across the dining room table, but it was visceral all the same, and as strong as the walls of Winterfell.

 

As the meal came to a close, Bran asked, “Robb can you stay over? We could go to… you know… in the morning.”

 

Arya rolled her eyes, “Just say you want to go to the comic book store.”

 

Bran and Robb both turned bright red and Bran said pointedly, “I was trying not to in front of _our guest_.”

 

“ _Your guest loves Thor,”_ she stage whispered.

 

Jon let out a surprised laugh that had them all joining in and when she glanced at Robb it was his turn to wink at her.

 

He turned to Bran and said though, “Sorry buddy, I’ve got to get Myrcella back into the city.”

 

“She can sleep in my bed!,” Rickon offered immediately.

 

“Rickon!,” Catelyn chided.

 

“What?,” he asked innocently, “I’d sleep on the couch,” and then muttered, “If she wanted me to.”

 

She blushed but couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling out of her. She and Robb both demurred and after an extensive amount of thank yous and promises of seeing one another soon, he lead her back out to his car.

 

He let her in the front seat and then went around to the driver’s side, turning on the car and heating it up immediately. He drove down the long driveway and she was sorry to say goodbye.

 

“So…,” he started as he pulled onto the highway, “What did you think?”

 

“I think… that of all your tricks,” she sighed, turning to him with a small smile, “That has to have been the dirtiest by far.”

 

***

 

They pulled up in front of Myrcella’s hotel and he turned in to drop his car with the valet.

 

“I can just get out here,” she offered.

 

“I know,” he allowed, “But I’d like to take you up.”

 

She looked at him, her eyes wide and shook her head, “Look I know that we’ve started trying to -“

 

“Not for that,” he interrupted truthfully. He wasn’t really sure how to phrase it without making her angry so he just said, “I’d just like to see you to your door.”

 

He shouldn’t have been surprised that she saw right through him, but he couldn’t help it.

 

“I gave them the night off,” she told him gently. “They won’t be there.”

 

He’d found the strength to be civil to Tywin and Jaime today, that was necessary, both for her sake and for the sake of the negotiations, but he had no ability to do so when it came to the Cleganes. When he saw Gregor towering over Myrcella, all he could think about was him barging into a wine cellar, smashing wine bottles. He thought of his hands on her body roughly. Her neck was smaller than his wrist, he could snap the life from her without breaking a sweat and she knew it and he knew that she did and he had tried to intimidate her anyway.

 

There would be no forgiveness for the Cleganes, and he did not hide his distaste for them. If he was ever questioned on it he could blame their interaction the evening before. Though no one seemed surprised that he had that reaction to them.

 

So he was relieved that they should not be waiting outside her door, though he was not entirely convinced that they wouldn’t be. As he’d noted the night before, they were employed by her grandfather, not her. She may very well have given them the night off, that did not mean that Tywin had.

 

All he said though was, “All the more reason.” She still looked hesitant, which sort of stung and sort of gave him hope, so he went for total honesty, “Look, I… really missed you these past few weeks, and though I _know_ that you can take care of yourself, I went from hearing from you or seeing you every day to _nothing_ and I… it drove me a little crazy. You’d said all that stuff about King’s Landing not being safe and then… I know now that he’s a good guy but I had no idea he was when you were with Trystane and I just… I just want to see you safely to your door. I’ll leave as soon as I hear you lock the door behind me. Please.”

 

The truth was, he’d driven himself a little crazy over it the past few weeks. All he could think about was that if she disappeared no one would ever tell him, even in grief her family would be spiteful and the uncertainty of it all kept him up at night.

 

She nodded in acceptance and he handed his keys off and they got out of the car. As they walked into the main entrance he glanced briefly at the hotel bar.

 

“Don’t even think about it, Stark,” she warned.

 

She was good. Too good. In truth, he wasn’t entirely sure how he’d gotten away with any of it in the first place. He knew that she felt like she didn’t know him, and he understood why, but the truth of the matter was he’d never known anyone who got him so intrinsically as she did.

 

He chuckled, “Wouldn’t _dream_ of it, Baratheon.”

 

It was a lie and they both knew it but she smiled anyway.

 

“15 please,” she said to the elevator attendant as they got inside.

 

“Right away, Miss Baratheon,” the attendant said.

 

He couldn’t be any older than Bran and he was already far too schooled in his profession not to ask him which floor he was going to, or to show any surprise about someone accompanying her to her room.

 

They rode up in silence and got off on her floor. It really was a beautiful hotel, far nicer than the modern monstrosity her uncle and grandfather were staying in with their lawyers.

 

They walked down the hall until they got to her suite.

 

“Thank you for coming,” he told her, and smiled, “I know it wasn’t really a conventional date but…”

 

To her credit she didn’t tell him it wasn’t a date, she merely smiled and said, “I had a lovely time. It was nice to meet them, to understand… thank you. And please thank your mother again for me.”

 

He nodded, “I will,” and then narrowed her eyes at her, “And don’t even _think_ about writing a thank you note.”

 

She balked and played nonchalant, “And what makes you think I’d do that? You think I just travel with stationary?”

 

“Um, yes, yes I do,” he nodded, “I saw it on your desk last night.” Her face turned pink and it was so endearing that he couldn’t stop himself from stroking her cheek. Her eyes widened and his voice was like gravel when he said, “And I know you, Myrcella Baratheon. And you’d never let hating me get in the way of your manners.”

 

Her mouth sounded dry when she all but whispered, “I think we both know I don’t hate you.”

 

He wanted to kiss her. He wanted to kiss her so badly, but she’d told him she wasn’t ready and even though she wore the expression of a girl who’d sorely like to be kissed, he couldn’t risk it.

 

“I’ll think I’ll take that as a victory,” he told her, his voice hoarse, “And say goodnight.”

 

She nodded, “Okay.”

 

Their eyes hadn’t left one another’s in over a minute and he would have stared at her all night if she let him.

 

“Okay,” he said though.

 

He turned to walk away, and if he hadn’t been so tuned into her he never would have heard it, but she was his every thought, his every want, his every feeling, so he didn’t miss it when she said, “Or…”

 

***

 

“I’m so flattered,” Robb said with a grin.

 

“You’re _flattered_ that I thought you lied?,” she teased, smacking him with a throw pillow.

 

He picked one up and pretended like he was going to thump her with it but grinned, “I’m _flattered_ that you think Jon and I are smart enough to come up with a story _on the spot_ about the girl I first kissed becoming my aunt…”

 

“You’re right I’m giving you way too much credit,” she said, scrunching her nose.

 

“Fuuck your cute,” he sighed.

 

Just like the first time his eyes got comically wide, as though he couldn’t quite believe he said it.

 

“Real or fake?,” she asked quietly. He raised his eyebrow at her and she shook her head, “You probably don’t remember but -“

 

“We were at Supper,” he interrupted and she nodded, “And you raised your chin imperiously and then crossed your eyes at me like a six year old,” he grinned and she smiled. He looked down, picking at an absent thread on his sweater and said softly, “Real.” She was already sitting on her knees and so she was close enough to tuck her finger under his chin and make him look up at her. He let out a pained laugh and said, “You took me by surprise, you know? I knew you were beautiful - only a blind daft man would deny it - but I forgot about it sometimes. And I’d be looking at you, listening to what you were saying, trying to figure out how to broach the topic of your family without raising suspicion and then you’d just… _do something_. And then you were just this girl, this lovely, funny, adorable, clever girl that liked to give me a piece of her mind and at the same time was sweeter than anyone I’d ever known, and you’d look at me sometimes and I’d just…forget. I lied… by omission. But the stories I told you, my opinions, my likes and dislikes, all of that was real.”

 

She believed him, she really did, and she didn’t want to belabour the point unnecessarily so she merely asked, “So all that stuff about hating the ballet we went to was true?”

 

He glanced at her in horror and then looked down and started playing with that errant thread again. He looked back up at her and she raised her eyebrow at him and waited patiently.

 

Finally he exploded, “Well its just that last combination is so beautiful, you know? And Taiton really is the greatest composer of the 19th century and -,” he broke off when he saw she was grinning at him. He narrowed his eyes at her and said, “I’ll bet you’re real proud of yourself, aren’t you?”

 

She shrugged and then crossed her eyes at him until he chuckled.

 

It felt so nice to be here with him. This is what she missed the most, the nights that they’d spent sitting on her couch and talking. She loved hearing him talk, loved how animated he got, and how he’d sometimes blush when he feared he’d said too much. She loved that no matter how they started the conversation, they always ended it wrapped up in one another.

 

It had been almost like that with Trystane, she’d thought, but sitting here now with Robb, she realised that almost really wasn’t close at all.

 

“What about _you_?,” he asked pointedly, “No one is ever _entirely_ truthful at the start of a relationship. What lies have you told, Miss Baratheon?”

 

“Well,” she started, “I don’t really know how to tell you this…” His eyes widened and he leaned forward slightly and she said solemnly, “I don’t really like Thor. I mean, I don’t have anything against him _personally_ of course, I just don’t really know anything about him. I just like that actor who plays him.”

 

He narrowed his eyes at her and growled, “You are such a little shit!,” and he tackled her backwards, tickling her.

 

She squealed, because if there was one thing she hadn’t lied about it was when she told him how ticklish she was.

 

He just kept going though and she thought she might well and truly pee in her pants, or failing that, kick him, _entirely by accident of course_ , in an unmentionable area. She felt his breath on her cheek though and she turned and looked up at him and he was so very close, and her discomfort at being tickled really did nothing to mitigate the overwhelming comfort she felt at having his body covering hers, so she leaned up and kissed him.

 

His response was immediate, the fingers that had a moment earlier been ticking her, found themselves on her cheeks, his thumbs underneath her chin. It was different than last night, but familiar too, and so lovely.

 

He sprung off her though and said, “I’m sorry!”

 

She sat up and pointed out, “I kissed you.”

 

“Right…,” Robb grinned sheepishly and asked, “Did you do it just to make me stop tickling you?”

 

She pursed her lips, trying to hide her smile, “Maybe.” His mouth fell open in faux-horror and she leaned forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, her forehead against his, “The truth is… I don’t know where we are heading but… I just… I _really_ fucking wanted to kiss you,” she repeated his words from last night and looked into his ocean eyes, “Is that okay?”

 

“Yeah, sweetheart,” he smiled, his eyes looking over her face in wonder, his voice like gravel, “That’s okay.”

 

She leaned closer to him and kissed him again, she had missed this feeling so much, the warmth that spread through her veins when they kissed. There was heat too, so much of it, but it was the warmth she loved most.

 

He broke the kiss and leaned his forehead against hers, his arms still holding her, “But there’s something else I have to tell you…”

 

***

 

He hated how afraid she looked for a moment. She nodded bravely though and pressed one last kiss to his lips and said, “I’ll make us some tea.”

 

He watched her go, not even trying to refrain from looking at her ass. Being a good guy was infinitely harder than he’d like it to be right now, when all he wanted was to feel her perfect body pressed against his.

 

Kissing her again was intoxicating. He wasn’t sure that he’d ever have the chance to, and the fact that she had initiated it made it all the sweeter.

 

_I really fucking wanted to._

 

It was what he’d told her last night and it felt so good to hear it back. He knew she wasn’t punishing him, he knew she was really struggling. He understood, he really did, and that was why he had to stop it. He’d never keep anything from her again, he’d never do anything to screw things up again, and if taking it slow now meant he’d get her forever, then it was worth it. More than.

 

“Mint okay?,” she called from the kitchen.

 

“Perfect,” he told her and got off the couch. There was something in her voice.

 

He walked into the kitchen and saw her fumbling with one of the tea packets. Her hands were shaking and he stepped behind her slowly and covered her hand in his, holding it steady.

 

“I’m sorry,” she sighed and fell back against his chest, “I won’t freak out every time you tell me we have to talk.”

 

There was so much hope in all of that his heart was soaring. He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her to him. He could feel her heart beating wildly in her chest and he kissed her temple, and her cheek, and then he buried his face in her neck. He didn’t kiss her, he just stayed there, breathing her in, and just like that her heart rate fell to a steady _thud, thud, thud_.

 

He remembered being in the Oak Room and feeling like his heart was going to beat out of his chest until she came and wrapped her arms around his neck just like that.

 

It was the night he knew he was well and truly damned.

 

_She loves me too._

 

Being loved by a woman like Myrcella Baratheon made a man brave, so he told her, “I told my father to name Jon his heir.”

 

“No,” she shook her head, turning around, “Robb tell me you didn’t.”

 

He remembered that day in his father’s office. He’d brought him in there for a scolding, he had wanted to reprimand him and move on. He hadn’t known what to do when Robb told him what he wanted.

 

“I had to,” he told her.

 

She looked at him in horror, tears sparking her eyes and she opened her mouth to say something but the tea kettle started boiling. She turned away from him, picking it up and pouring the water into mugs. Her hands were no longer shaking. She was steady.

 

Anger had always made her strong.

 

She handed him his mug and went into the living room without sparing him a second glance. She all but huffed and in any other scenario it might have been funny.

 

He followed her in and sat down on the couch. She took a calm, too calm, sip of tea and looked at him, “Why don’t you walk me through it.”

 

“Put your tea on the table,” he ordered. She raised her elegant brow at him and he said, “I’m in the splash zone.”

 

She looked away from him, but he could see her biting her lip to keep from grinning and she placed her mug on the table. She pulled her legs up and sat cross legged, holding a throw pillow to her chest.

 

“It was the right thing to do,” he told her.

 

“How was giving away your _birthright_ the right thing to do?,” she argued.

 

“Because it’s a company,” he told her, “It’s not a piece of property, a family heirloom. It’s a company, a business, livelihoods depend on it and have for nearly a hundred years.”

 

“And you should be the one to see it through the next hundred!,” she urged him passionately, “Gods Robb do you have any idea how _rare_ you are? You have the brains, and the passion, the right family name? You have the charm and the diplomacy and the strength. A man like you comes around _once_ in a generation if they’re lucky -“

 

“Twice, in this one,” he said.

 

He couldn’t tell her how much her words meant to him. There was no possible way for him to explain how he felt himself growing taller under her gaze, even if she was angry with him.

 

She sighed, “I know Jon is bright but - Robb…”

 

“He’s more than that,” he shook his head, “My father raised him in his image, just like he did me. He taught him everything he taught me. Jon has everything I have plus one more thing, the key to it all, integrity.”

 

“You have integrity,” she said.

 

“No,” he laughed harshly, “Not after what I did.”

 

She got off the couch and said, “No. No! You are not doing this because of me. I won’t allow it. You’ll regret this, you will Robb. I know you’re sorry I know you are just please don’t throw your life away or you’ll regret it forever and you’ll end up….”

 

“Resenting you?,” he guessed and she looked at him wide-eyed. He got off the couch and crossed to her. She stepped away, but she’d already said too much, there was no demurring now, no denying what she felt for him. “I would never resent you. This was me, all me. What I did and what I chose. And I know you, I know you’d never ask me to give it up. It would never even occur to you,” he said and stroked her temple, “And there are not many things this mind misses. I’m not doing it for you. I’m doing it for me.”

 

“But you just said -“

 

“That I chose this because of what I did,” he said. He tried to think of how to phrase it and she waited patiently. “The fact that I did this to you is something I will never forgive myself for,” he sighed, trying to get it right, “But the fact that I did it to _anyone_ is enough to make me understand that I could never lead Stark Industries. I know you think that I did it for the company, and I did, but not wholly. I did it for myself too, I was so desperate to do this on my own, to prove my worth, to prove that I _deserved_ to be the heir. And that desperation caused me to abandon all the ideals my father had instilled in me.”

 

“Once,” she whispered, taking his face in her hands, “Robb you made one mistake, _one,_ in a lifetime of doing the right thing - you did the wrong thing _once_. And you’re just throwing it all away.”

 

“Leaving it in Jon’s hands is not throwing it all away,” he told her.

 

She sighed but looked up at him and nodded. She backed away from him and he could tell she was thinking it through.

 

“What about your children?,” she wondered.

 

She wasn’t arguing anymore, she had seemed to take him at his word. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t considered that. Though he believed that a birthright was antiquated, he had worried at the thought of his son or daughter being angry with him for turning his back on a tradition that would have given them the reins.

 

But then he’d seen Jon with Rickon and Bran and Arya. They’d been trying to convince them all to have internships at Stark Industries for years. Sansa had no interest in the business, with the exception of the non-profit division which she leant her hand to from time to time. Jon wanted his siblings in the fold, he’d never try and keep all the power for himself.

 

“If my children show any interest in the company, Jon will mentor them the way my father mentored him,” he said without a shadow of doubt, “He’d never do anything to harm any child of mine.”

 

 _Ours_ , his eyes said, though he did not.

 

Myrcella nodded slowly and asked, “So what will you do?”

 

“I’ll see this deal through, and the announcement will be made. It won’t happen overnight or anything, and I’ve agreed to stay on in an advisory role, I still own too many shares independently to be out of the fold entirely. And then…,” he smiled at her and shrugged, “I’ll do anything I want. It feels kind of nice.”

 

She smiled for the first time since he’d told her and said teasingly, “Sounds like you’ll have some spare time on your hands…”

 

He grinned, “Have any good ideas on how to pass it?”

 

“You could take up knitting,” she suggested. He chuckled and without warning she jumped into his arms. He caught her to him and she wrapped her legs around his waist, and took his face in her hands. “I love you, Robb Stark, I’m so sick of denying it, and if this is what you want, what you really want, I’ll support you. No matter what.”

 

He cupped the back of her head and said, “I love you for counselling me against this, but I promise you it’s the right decision.”

 

She nodded, “Okay, I trust you.”

 

It was nearly better than her telling him she loved him. Nearly. He growled and kissed her and starting walking still holding her.

 

“Where are you going?,” she asked.

 

“I’m taking you to bed, Myrcella Baratheon,” he told her.

 

She giggled and leaned back, her hands gripping his shoulders, “I meant after the announcement, will you stay here?”

 

He got into the bedroom, and though he loved that mind of hers he really wanted to stop talking.

 

“I don’t know,” he said, kissing her neck, “Got any ideas?”

 

She was kissing his cheek and his temple, “Would you ever consider moving South?”

 

He tossed her on the bed and tugged off his sweater. He hardened looking at the way her eyes trailed down his body hungrily.

 

“I hate King’s Landing,” he told her honestly, and then climbed on top of her. He stroked her cheek with his thumb, “But I would move anywhere that let me be with you.”

 

She smiled and then rolled them over so she was on top of him. She pulled off her shirt and he leaned up and pressed kisses to her flat stomach, up her chest to her neck.

 

“I love you for saying so,” she told him, pushing him back down and kissing his chest. She looked up at him with those green eyes of hers and gave him that smile, and said, “But King’s Landing wasn’t exactly what I had in mind…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh I just couldn't keep them apart anymore. 
> 
> I know some of you guessed about Robb, and I am interested to hear your thoughts now?
> 
> I think I am nearing the end here, probably just one more chapter and an epilogue.


	17. Chapter 17

A YEAR AND A HALF LATER

 

The sky had turned peach only moments before he made his way to the giant willow tree. He’d never imagined a countryside could be so beautiful until he’d seen this one, until it became theirs. Looking out there, over their vast land he felt an immense pride, and a contentment he hadn’t understood he was capable of.

 

That pride and contentment paled in comparison to the joy he felt watching a lone figure approach. Her once dark golden hair had lightened under the Dornish sun and her creamy skin was perpetually sun kissed, her slender limbs toned from hours spent on horseback and walking.

 

She wore a pale blue linen dress, she must have come straight from the gallery, and carried a small basket in one hand and her shoes in the other.

 

He bent over and laid out the blanket he’d brought.

 

“Oi, nice ass!,” she called to him, like he’d called to her some time ago.

 

He chuckled and straightened up as she made her way to the blanket.

 

“You almost got an earful,” he teased.

 

“I’ll take a kiss instead,” she prompted.

 

He never needed to be asked twice, more often he didn’t need to be asked at all, and he held the back of her head and kissed her warm lips. She tasted like plums and her, and he took the opportunity to take the basket out of her hands.

 

“What did you bring?,” he asked her when they parted.

 

She plopped her shoes on the ground and said, “Arianne brought us some peaches, and I brought a bottle of the 2008 Gold.”

 

“I thought we were running low on that?,” he asked.

 

She grinned and said, “Apparently one of the artists dropped it off as a thank you - all of his paintings sold. I don’t think he knows we own the vineyard.”

 

The decision to move to Dorne had been a fairly easy one for them both. As he’d said, he would have moved to King’s Landing for her, he’d move just about anywhere for her, but she was not unaware of his disdain for it. She too had long tired of it, and had put in notice at the auction house shortly after returning.

 

She’d offered to move North, which had been tempting, but in the end he’d decided it made sense to move elsewhere. The announcement had been made by then and though after the initial shock there was a surge of support for Jon, he didn’t want to be hovering as an heir presumptive. He wanted to give Jon and his father time to figure out how they wanted the next phase to look without people thinking that he was waiting in the wings. He wanted Jon to have the ability to make a few mistakes, and figured being out of sight would stop people from offering up his name as an alternative when he did.

 

Most importantly, their relationship had still been new then, and they wanted the opportunity to spend time with one another without the prying eyes of either of their families. She’d mentioned this to Tyrion over dinner one night, and he’d signed over the deed to the vineyard before dessert had arrived. He knew how much she loved it, and Robb knew that it was his way of apologising to her for what had happened all those years ago.

 

They both took part in running the vineyard, though they had an experienced manager that they trusted implicitly to help them. An old man who had been there since the owners before Tyrion, Barristen Selmy, who was patient with them both as they learned. Robb also taught a business class at the local university, and had taken on a more active advisory role at Stark Industries than he’d originally imagined.

 

Myrcella had no desire to handle the collections of the immensely wealthy anymore, but she hadn’t abandoned her love of art, and had instead opened a small gallery in town. She focused exclusively on under appreciated artists, and had unsurprisingly turned it into a great success. Her client roster now spanned across the fourteen seas.

 

So they both kept busy enough, but neither felt the desire to return to their days of working from six am until midnight. Thankfully they didn’t need to, and instead hired people they trusted to make sure their businesses ran smoothly, which allowed them plenty of time for one another and the life they were building.

 

“What did _you_ bring?,” she asked. He picked up the book he’d brought and she smiled, “Aemon’s Travels? You really know how to spoil a girl.”

 

He grinned and sat down with his back against the tree trunk and spread his legs. She settled down in front of him, leaning against his chest. He opened the book and started reading to her, as she turned her face into his neck and nuzzled against him.

 

He remembered that night in the hotel room in Wintertown, when this all became a possibility once again. That night had been the true beginning for them, the one where they both forgot everything that happened before, knowing the irrevocability of the love they had for each other.

 

She reached in the picnic basket and picked out a peach. The peaches here were larger than he’d ever seen, and he’d noticed lately that Myrcella had a craving for them.

 

She took a bite as he continued to read to her. Making her laugh as always when he got to the part about the horse trying to cross the river.

 

She held up the peach to his lips and he took a bite. Some juice dribbled down onto her palm and he chased it with his lips down her arm. She nuzzled against his neck when he did so and even though the juice was long gone he continued his attentions, kissing her wrist and the crook of her elbow. He kissed her shoulder and then took her lips with his own.

 

Aemon’s Travels long forgotten he placed the book down and cupped her cheek, deepening the kiss. She sucked on his bottom lip and he felt that heady combination he always felt when they were close - the mixture of complete comfort and insatiable desire.

 

He turned her around so that she was facing him and then gently lowered her down onto her back onto the blanket. Her legs were on either side of his body, and she was offering her neck up to be kissed.

 

His hand wandered from her cheek down her body until he got to the tie of her dress and began pulling it apart.

 

“ _Robb_ ,” she chided, “We can’t make love out here.”

 

“Of course we can,” he argued, pulling her dress open and kissing over her heart, “It’s our property, and everyone’s left…”

 

Her hands found his hair and she stroked through his curls, “How do you know?,” she asked breathlessly as he kissed her breasts.

 

“Because I sent them home,” he told her and caught her surprised laughter on his lips.

 

***

 

Though it was dusky, the sky a pale purple as the last of the sun creeped down the landscape, it was still warm as they lay underneath the willow tree.

 

“We should get back and cook something,” she suggested. “Or we’ll be having a midnight feast.”

 

He kissed her hair and said, “Wouldn’t be the first time.”

 

They were still on the blanket, their naked bodies pressed up against one another’s. His fingers were tracing patterns on her back and she had her ear against his heartbeat, nearly lulled into sleep by the steady _thud, thud, thud_.

 

He had a point and she felt satiated as she lay there with him. Her days were spent in a haze of happiness now. No more midnight phone calls with the office in Yunkai, no more all nighters, or her waistline disappearing the closer she got to the sales.

 

She loved the vineyard, she still lead the wine tastings whenever she was able, and took long walks with Barristan and Robb surveying the land. Robb kept all the ledgers and she worked with the distributors. In the past six months Imp’s Delight had become the most ordered vineyard in King’s Landing’s West Hamlet.

 

They wanted to keep it small though, they liked hiring locals who understood the soil and the seasons. The summers had turned hotter even since the summer she’d lived here and now all the harvesting was done before June.

 

Before they’d moved she had been worried about Robb, whether he’d be happy here or whether he just wanted to be here for her, but after a month she’d never worried again. He loved it nearly more than she did, and they’d developed a great group of friends.

 

Gendry was thinking of moving down here come the Fall and opening a new restaurant, and he and Robb had been looking over business plans on his visit last month.

 

With the land untenable in the summer months they would head North. Robb still own his flat in Wintertown, but she knew they’d spend most of their time out at Winterfell. She was looking forward to it immensely. Sansa and Jon were getting married in August and she and Sansa would have loads to do beforehand.

 

Robb too would be busy with Stark Industries. They were working on a new venture and Jon had asked him to step in more full time come Summer to help oversee it.

 

She’d stop for a weekend at Casterly Rock to see Uncle Jaime. He’d moved out there full time about six months ago, claiming that King’s Landing had lost its brightness.

 

She made a point to call her mother and grandfather each once a week on Tuesday afternoons. Her favorite time for errands was still Saturday mornings, and Robb joined her more often than not, making a rule that their phones stayed at home.

 

Her mother hadn’t forgiven her for leaving, but that was alright, because she’d never forgiven her for bringing her back all those years ago. She hadn’t been to visit once, which was just as well, though even her Grandfather had stopped in for dinner when he’d been in Dorne on business in November.

 

Life felt better without the constant monitoring of the Lannisters, and whatever words Robb had shared with her grandfather and uncles before they’d moved down here had seemed to work, because they’d been largely undisturbed these past months.

 

And she fell asleep each night with him beside her and woke up every morning in his arms as she was now.

 

Her stomach rumbled and he chuckled at her, “Alright, let’s get you home.”

 

She kissed him once more and stood up. She pulled on her underwear and bra. He pulled on his boxers and when she looked over at him he was giving her a bit of a strange expression.

 

“What?,” she wondered.

 

He smiled at her lovingly, “Do I need a reason to stare at you?”

 

She blushed and said, “Don’t embarrass me,” her hand going up to card through her hair by rote.

 

She hit her earlobe when she did and noticed that her diamond earring was missing. She felt for it to make sure and her face fell.

 

“What’s wrong?,” he asked.

 

“My grandmother’s earring,” she said, looking around, “It fell out.”

 

They started looking around and she checked on the blanket where they’d been laying. She didn’t see it and she felt near to tears.

 

His pants were still lying on the ground so she picked them up.

 

“No not those!,” Robb tried to stop her.

 

It was too late though, she’d already lifted them and a small black box fell out of one of his pockets.

 

“Robb… what is that?,” she asked, as though she’d spotted a snake.

 

“Well this,” he said, bending down and proffering her earring, “Is the diamond you’re looking for, and _this_ ,” he said, kneeling down and picking up the box, “Is the diamond I hope you’ll wear just as faithfully, every day,” he said opening the box and revealing the most beautiful diamond ring she’d ever seen, “For the rest of our lives.”

 

“Are you sure?,” she asked stupidly.

 

They were already building a life together. Neither of them had looked backwards since that night in Wintertown, only forwards.

 

He chuckled, “Yeah I’m sure. And if you don’t believe me, I’ll show you the date on the receipt - I purchased it in October.”

 

“You’ve known you wanted to marry me since October?,” she laughed.

 

“No,” he told her, “I’ve known I wanted to marry you since the October before last. It just took me until then to believe that you might just want to marry me too.”

 

“I’ve wanted to a lot longer than that…,” she promised.

 

He smiled and picked the ring out of the box and took her left hand in his, “So what do you say, Myrcella, have a life with me, won’t you?,” he asked and she would have screamed yes if she only had the breath to do so. He narrowed his eyes at her and teased, just like he had all those months ago, “ _I dare you_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue left to go now if people are still interested ...?


	18. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all SO much for the support on this one. I have really loved writing it and I hope you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> This was meant to be way shorter but I just couldn't resist. If anyone has any questions about any loose strings let me know, I have a pretty firm idea about how it all shook out.

TWENTY-THREE YEARS LATER

 

“Stop that,” Robb chided her.

 

“Stop what?,” she asked in a bored tone.

 

He chuckled at her and came to wrap his arms around her from behind. They stood in front of their bathroom mirror where she had in fact just been lamenting momentarily, _only_ momentarily, about another line she’d found in her face.

 

“You are more beautiful now than you were the day I met you,” he said sweetly, stupidly.

 

“No, my love, your eyes are just worse,” she pointed out and then remembered, “Oh! The pharmacy called, your new contacts are ready.”

 

He sighed and turned her around, ignoring her never ending attempt to keep them on top of everything they needed to do. He had the look of a man who would not be deterred from being sweet to his old wife.

 

“You know what each of these _barely there_ lines tell me?,” he asked, stroking down her face lovingly, “That I’ve done my job all these years and made you laugh.”

 

“I was mostly laughing _at_ you,” she muttered under her breath and when he let out a surprised chuckle she caught it on her lips.

 

He responded to her, like he always did, even after all these years, by pulling her more securely into his arms and deepening the kiss.

 

They were no longer kids who made love multiple times a day on every surface in and around this house, but they had never tired of one another either. He still took her breath away and in all these years he had never so much as looked at another woman longingly.

 

That foundation they had built was the sturdiest surface in her entire world, and even when she’d been at her lowest points she had never felt it shake. Not once.

 

His hand wandered down to cup her butt and as though some alarm had gone off they heard, “ _Mooooooom?,”_

 

Robb chuckled and said, “It’s like he has a special radar for it.”

 

She giggled and called, “In here Jon!”

 

Robb let her go, but just barely as their youngest son, Jon, came in. He looked nothing like his namesake, except when he concentrated, and then he was all Jon Snow. Otherwise he looked like a carbon copy of her brother Tommen, right down to his button nose. He looked at them a bit funnily and she smoothed out her dress.

 

“What is it, honey?,” she asked.

 

“Have you seen my life jacket?,” he asked, yawning. He stretched his arms up, as though trying to touch the ceiling the way Robb used to have him try when he was just a little kid. “I left it outside on the railing last night.”

 

Living in a seaside house with four children, there were always things left hanging to dry on the railing outside.

 

 

“Ned and I brought everything into the screened-in porch last night because of the storm,” Robb told him.

 

“Thanks Dad! I’m heading out on the Dayne’s boat, won’t be back for dinner… might not be back tonight,” he said with a wink for his father.

 

She ignored that one. He was a good boy but at seventeen he shared his father’s weakness for pretty girls. The Daynes were good friends of her and Robb’s and they had three rambunctious boys all around their kids’ ages. She and Lyarra, the mother of the brood, were very close and made sure to send each other messages whenever they spotted one of the other’s children in their homes. She was used to him not coming home on Saturday nights, and though that wink implied he’d be with a girl she knew that he’d be sleeping in one of his friends guest rooms.

 

She asked him, “Did you say goodbye to your brother?”

 

“No,” Jon shrugged, “I’ll say goodbye to him tomorrow.”

 

Robb chuckled, “We’re taking him to the airport in a few minutes.”

 

Jon’s eyes widened in horror, “Oh fuck! _Ned!!!_ ”

 

“I’ll go see how the rest of the troops are doing,” she told Robb and planted a kiss to his lips.

 

She walked down the hall and down the back stairs to the kitchen. She loved this house, the way it perpetually smelled of lilacs and sea air, and the inside of their pantry that listed all the kids’ heights from when they could walk through this year.

 

She walked into the kitchen and found the baby of the bunch, Joey, sitting in the window seat with a mug of tea.

 

Joey was named after Myrcella’s maternal grandmother Joanna. In his last years her grandfather Tywin had gotten very ill and at his doctor’s suggestion moved to Dorne. His illness had tempered him and he had wanted to spend more time with her and Robb and the boys. Joanna ‘Joey’ Stark had been born three weeks before he died, and in those final days he held her more than he had ever held any of his children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren before her.

 

“Morning baby,” she said to her daughter.

 

“Hi,” she sniffled.

 

At ages thirteen and fourteen Joey had been prone to the normal mood swings every girl of that age suffered, but in the past year they had seemed to temper out and she hadn’t seen her fifteen year old daughter cry in some time.

 

“What is it, baby?,” she asked in concern, crossing over to her. She sat down on the window seat and pulled Joey’s legs over her, rubbing her calves, “Did you and Oberyn have a fight?”

 

Joey let out a tear filled laugh and shook her head, “Of course not.”

 

That was fair. Oberyn Martell and Joey Stark had not had a fight in their entire eight month relationship (or in the fourteen years they were friends before that).

 

It had been a little uncomfortable at first when Trystane moved back to the family home in Dorne with his wife Silla. Ned, her and Robb’s oldest, was three at the time and Silla was pregnant with their first.

 

She had kept in touch over the years with Trystane though, and he had warned her before he moved back just like she had warned him many years before, but even still those first few meetings at the farmer’s market hadn’t been entirely comfortable.

 

Then one March while Robb was in Wintertown, Dorne had its worst storm in twenty years, a series of terrible tornadoes. It had been Trystane who had come to rescue her and Ned and their newborn son, Rickard, bringing them to the shelter his family had built generations before.

 

After that bridges had been built. She and Silla had become friends, it was too small a community not to, and Robb and Trystane, after a few liquor fuelled late night chats had become friends as well.

 

The couples had dinner with each other once a month usually and their children had grown up together. Sixteen year old Oberyn, Trystane’s youngest, had been besotted with Joey since she was a baby and had kissed her for the first time on her fifteenth birthday. They’d been dating ever since, to everyone except Joey’s three brothers happiness.

 

Joey was the baby and only girl of the bunch, and her older brothers, Jon, seventeen, Rick, nineteen, and Ned, twenty two were all very protective of her. Rick had talked to Ned about Oberyn far before Joey came in smiling ear to ear after her first kiss. Robb, who was a very over protective brother himself, had had the difficult task of explaining to Rick, and subsequently Jon and Ned many, many times, that they had to let Joey learn for herself.

 

Which, of course, didn’t stop Robb from having a very stern talk with Oberyn when Joey had missed curfew one night while they were on a date.

 

“It’s just…,” Joey said, brushing her tears away stubbornly, “Neddy.”

 

Myrcella’s heart broke and she pulled her daughter into her lap. All the kids were upset about Ned moving, they’d all thought that he’d spend a few months at home after university before he started his job up North. Her and Robb included.

 

Ned though took after his father and when his Uncle Jon had mentioned that they’d be starting a new project in June, Ned had jumped at the opportunity to get his hands dirty.

 

“We’ll see him in August,” she said to herself as much as her daughter.

 

“And Rick’s going too,” she cried.

 

“Only into Sunspear for his internship,” Myrcella noted, “He’s still living here.”

 

“I know,” Joey sniffled, and then sobbed, “ _But he’s going to wear a suiiiiiit_.”

 

Myrcella bit her lip so that she didn’t laugh. In truth she and Robb had been caught by surprise when their second oldest had come home from his first year of university with an internship all planned out. They had planned to give him one more year working at the vineyard before they urged him to do so, and quite frankly of all her children, Rick seemed the least suited to an office.

 

“What’s got Jo all upset?,” Ned asked as he came into the kitchen. He looked so much like his father that it took her by surprise sometimes, while Joey was all her. “If Oberyn even -“

 

“Oberyn didn’t do anything, you ninny!,” Joey cried, “It’s _you_.”

 

Ned’s face fell and he walked over to the window seat and sat behind her.

 

“What did _I_ do?,” he asked in concern.

 

“You’re leaving me,” she said stubbornly.

 

Ned looked at her helplessly over Joey’s head. His little sister worshipped him and he hated seeing her upset.

 

“I’ll be back,” he promised, stroking Joey’s hair, “And you’ll come see me in August.”

 

“And then when?,” Joey asked, “You’re never going to come home, you hate it here.”

 

Ned chuckled at her now, which was undeniably a mistake.

 

“I love it here,” he promised her, which Myrcella knew was true, “And besides even if I _did_ hate it here, I’d have to come home to keep Rick and Jon in line.”

 

“What about me?,” she asked.

 

Ned psshed at her, “The last time I tried to keep you in line you didn’t speak to me for three days.”

 

Joey met her eyes and gave her an _oh shit_ expression. Myrcella couldn’t help but laugh now and thankfully her daughter joined in.

 

Ned took the win and wrapped his arms around them both.

 

“Of course I’ll always come home for my best girls,” he said, “I’d be lost without you two.”

 

After that there were no more tears, because if there was one thing Joey Stark knew, it was that the men in her life were absolutely helpless without her and her mom.

 

***

 

“Shit, I forgot my sneakers,” Ned said from the back.

 

“I mailed them ahead with some of your books,” Myrcella said from the passenger seat.

 

Robb grinned as Ned sighed in relief. He and his boys were so helpless without her.

 

He’d been dreading today. Though he loved all of his children equally, and had made it his mission over the years to have individual relationships with all of them, things he did with only them, Ned was his first. He was the one they always relied on to help keep track of the others, he set an example for Rick and Jon on how they should behave and gave Joey an example of how she should be treated.

 

He was glad at least, that he’d chosen Stark Industries over Lannister Corp. He’d interned at both companies during university, and though Lannister Corp. had improved greatly under the reign of Jaime and Tyrion, it still wasn’t where he wanted his son making a name for himself. Myrcella agreed wholeheartedly.

 

With her grandfather’s blessing before he died, she had split her father’s shares into three - one part for Tommen, one part for Gendry, and one part in a protected Trust for the kids. Since then she’d had little to no interaction with the company, but had better relationships with her Uncles than she ever had. Neither of them had grandchildren of their own, and though Robb had been wary at first, he could not deny that they doted on his children.

 

Even still, he felt better with Ned working firmly under Jon’s tutelage.

 

Even still, he had been dreading today.

 

“And if you forgot anything else we can mail it to you or bring it in August,” Robb assured him.

 

“I know,” Ned nodded.

 

“Just don’t tell Auntie Sansa,” Myrcella warned, “Or she’ll buy you whatever you forgot in three different colors.”

 

Ned and Robb chuckled, neither disagreeing with her. Sansa and Jon had three kids of their own, all around their kids ages, and like Myrcella, Sansa couldn’t _help_ but mother.

 

She was also dying to get Myrcella back for when her and Jon’s younger daughter Kitty had come to live with them last summer. She worshipped her Auntie Myrcella and had developed her fondness for art, so she’d worked in the gallery a few days a week. She’d returned home to Winterfell with a suntan, a long distance boyfriend, and a full new wardrobe along with a few pieces of art.

 

Sansa had been plotting ever since. Robb was pretty sure she had a roster of her older daughter Lyanna’s friends to set Ned up with.

 

“I’ll try not to mention it at Sunday dinners,” Ned said.

 

Sunday dinners were sacred in the Stark family, had been since he was growing up. Jon and Sansa still went out to Winterfell every Sunday with their kids, as did Bran and his wife Meera and their two young sons.

 

He and Myrcella had brought the tradition south, and every Sunday afternoon Gendry and Arya came over with their daughter.

 

“And you’ll watch out for your cousins?,” Myrcella prompted him, “Don’t let any of your friends near Kitty.”

 

“There’s a losing game,” Ned sighed.

 

Kitty was a perfect blend of her parents, with Sansa’s long, slender limbs and blue eyes and Jon’s colouring. She was as sweet as sugar and a true beauty, and it was turning Jon’s hair white.

 

Robb too had significantly more grey now that Joey had started high school. She was a dead ringer for Myrcella and in spite of having fairly intimidating brothers and a steady boyfriend there were no shortage of boys calling.

 

Myrcella smiled, “Just do your best. She hasn’t quite gotten over Zachary Dayne and I don’t want her heart broken again.”

 

“She broke up with him,” he and Ned pointed out in tandem.

 

Myrcella rolled her eyes as though they were the simplest creatures on earth and said, “Not the point.”

 

Ned chuckled in the back as Robb pulled up to the Departures entrance.

 

He looked over at Myrcella who had lowered her sunglasses onto her face and he patted her hand once before he got out of the car.

 

Ned and Myrcella did as well and Robb opened up the trunk and pulled out the suitcases Ned would be taking.

 

He’d be staying in the apartment Robb had lived in at his age, and as it had been used over the years, most recently as a crash pad for Rickon when he came back home, it was fully furnished. Myrcella had also gone up a month or so ago and bought new kitchen supplies and bedding and stocked the pantry with spices.

 

“Alright, you’ll call us when you land,” Robb said.

 

“Yeah Dad,” Ned said with a slight roll of his eyes.

 

“And you’ll call twice a week,” Myrcella urged.

 

Ned looked at her tenderly and grinned, “Probably more like twice a day, but you can call too, you know.”

 

“I know, I know,” Myrcella waved him off, “But you’ll be so busy.”

 

“Never too busy for you, Mom,” Ned told her.

 

In all honesty, Robb was surprised she’d lasted this long. Nevertheless, that did it and Myrcella broke down in tears.

 

Ned grinned and pulled her into a hug, and then picked her up until she was giggling as though she was no older than Joey.

 

“I love you, baby,” Myrcella said, kissing his cheek, “So much.”

 

“I love you too, Mom,” he said and set her down. Ned turned to him next and said, “I’ll make you proud, Dad.”

 

“Well,” Robb sighed, trying to hold back his own tears, “You’ve been doing it your whole life, why stop now?”

 

Ned grinned and then turned solemn, placing a hand on his shoulder, “Now Dad, you’re the man of the house now, I want you to look out for Mom, and Jon and Rick, and make sure to take special care with Joey.”

 

It was the speech Robb had always given him when he’d had to go away on business.

 

“You are such a little shit, just like your mother,” Robb chuckled and pulled Ned into a hug, “And I love you, son. More than you know.”

 

“I love you,” Ned said and burrowed into him for a minute.

 

Robb held him tight, letting him be a boy for as long as he needed. He knew all too well what it was to grow into a man too young and he hadn’t wanted any of his sons to do the same.

 

With one more hug to them both Ned grabbed his suitcases and wheeled them through the sliding doors.

 

Robb opened the door for Myrcella and then went around to his side and pulled out of the airport.

 

“Are you alright?,” she asked him.

 

“He’ll do great,” he said.

 

“It’s a talent of yours,” she smiled, “Telling a lie while only telling the truth.”

 

He grinned, “Wonder who I learned _that_ from.”

 

Myrcella picked up his hand in hers and brought it to her lips, murmuring, “Our first baby,” against his knuckles.

 

He gripped her hand tighter, running his thumb over the back of it.

 

His phone buzzed and Myrcella picked it up and said, “Rick finally woke up. He went with Jon on the Dayne’s boat.” She looked at her phone and said, “And Joey is going to the Water Gardens with Oberyn.”

 

It was rare for all the kids to be out at the same time. Usually their house was littered with kids, their friends all intermingling in spite of their ages the way kids always did in small towns.

 

“No kids, huh,” Robb nodded as he switched lanes, “And it’s Saturday morning…”

 

“I’ll buy you a baguette,” Myrcella cooed.

 

“I’ll buy _you_ some Braavosi Tulips,” he said, “And some lilies for Joey’s room too, I think. She’s taking this hard.”

 

“And let’s see if that vendor has that hummus Rick likes,” Myrcella suggested.

 

Robb kissed her hand and agreed to it all.

 

Saturday errands had always been sacred to her, and time with her had always been sacred to him. He hoped the boys didn’t stay at the Dayne’s, he hoped they’d bring a few of their friends for dinner. Robb would fire up the grill and Joey would pretend like they were all fools for trying to impress her while secretly loving the attention and even though the boys were older now, one or both of them would sit next to Myrcella and lean their heads on her shoulder and let her stroke their hair, not caring a whit for their friends’ teasing.

 

“Oh and didn’t we need something at the pharmacy?,” Myrcella asked.

 

“Contacts,” he answered.

 

She turned to him, that smile on her face, the one he’d never been able to resist.

 

“Oh and maybe we could stop by that wine bar, I tried this kind when I was with Lyarra last week, and I want to know if you can tell what the blend is. I was hoping we could maybe try it out next year.”

 

“Wait,” he grinned, “Are you saying you need _my_ advice on wine?”

 

“Well you have a better taste memory,” she told him as though it was obvious.

 

“Would you say it’s an _impressive_ taste memory?,” he asked.

 

“Pretty imp- _oh you little sneak!_ ”

 

He chuckled as he remembered their first date all those years ago, when she had swore he’d never impress her with his knowledge of wine.

 

They had learned long ago never to say never. She had never thought she’d forgive him, he had never thought that when they buried Tywin he’d be sorry to see him go, they had never imagined that in that hotel room that when they moved to Dorne they’d never leave.

 

It hadn’t been the life he thought he’d have, nor the one she thought she’d live either, in truth, it was better than anything they could have imagined.


End file.
